"This book contains a mixture of cases of female ‘murderers’ across the early modern period. I don’t think that they all needed to be included, particularly the cases that dealt with witchcraft (since no actual murder took place). It felt strange to have the cases of Alice Arden of Faversham (who was instrumental in murdering her husband) and Joan Peterson (who did not kill anyone) together in a book that’s meant to be about female killers and the fascination the country had with them.

While an interesting read, this book falls short due to its lack of purpose. I felt like it didn’t have a particular purpose, other than just recalling a mixture of actual female murderers, and others that didn’t commit a ‘real’ crime. I was left wondering to the contribution of this book in the field of history. Was it trying to suggest that early modern women did had the capacity to be violent murderer, but were mainly pushed into this action by the societal structure around them? This doesn’t fit all of the cases, since the witchcraft ones were nothing like the petty treason ones.

Without a clear sense of direction, this book just contributes to the long term fascination in female killers, ironically drawing attention to their crimes and replicating the very same thing the pamphleteers did by offering little critical examination of the historical significance of their ‘crimes’, beyond their gender.

This brings me to the second problem with this book. I felt like Adam’s didn’t offer enough analysis of the source material used to build the play by play of these women’s stories. Many true crime pamphlets were heavily embellished in order to sell more, and confessions could be made under threats of torture (sleep deprivation, lack of food, watched constantly). I feel like there could have been much more of an exploration into the complexities of using this kind of primary source material, particularly with the often second-hand nature of the information it contains. This isn’t to take away from the murders committed, nor the part that each woman played in them. Only that I wished there was more discussion on the complications certain sources give.

My final thought is that this book fell short of being a true historical analysis of why female killers were so popular in print culture, because it lacked a sense of direction, some contextual evidence, and not enough discussion on the primary sources.

Thank you to the publisher for this arc. All thoughts are my own.

Publishes on; 13th February"