The Herbalist

Out of nowhere the herbalist appears and sets up his stall in the market square. The stranger is exotic and glamourous and teenager Emily is spellbound -- here is a man of the world who won't care that she's not respectable. However, Emily has competition for the herbalist's attentions. The women of the town - the women from the big houses and their maids, the shopkeepers and their serving girls, those of easy virtue and their pious neighbours - are also mesmerized by the visitor who, they say, can perform miracles. But when Emily discovers the miracle-worker's dark side, her world turns upside down. She may be naïve, but she has a fierce sense of right and wrong. So, with his fate lying in her hands, Emily must make the biggest decision of her young life. To make the herbalist pay for his sins against the women of the town? Or let him escape to cast his spell on another place? The Herbalist is a deeply moving and viscerally powerful novel about the lives of women in 1930s Ireland. It is a dazzling and unforgettable story of love, shame, hypocrisy and courage.