Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Bergensdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Northern town of Vardø must fend for themselves. Three years later, a sinister figure arrives. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa, who is both heady with her husband’s authority and terrified by it. In Vardø, and in Maren… Read more.
Trigger & Content Warnings
- Period-typical misogyny
- Anti-indigenous racism
- Colonialism
- Religious bigotry and persecution for witchcraft (theme) including the on-page depiction of witch trials and burning women at the stake
- Graphic martial rape and sexual assault
- Infidelity*
- Forced marriage
- Pregnancy and pregnancy from rape discussed including childbirth
- Miscarriage
- Alcohol consumption
- Blood & gore depiction including dead bodies
- Death of a friend, on-page
- Death of a father, husband and brother mentioned
- Mass death by boating accident
- Murder, on-page
- Torture, implied
- Imprisonment mentioned
- Near-drowning incident
- Animal death
*Context : The protagonist falls in love with a woman but is in a forced arranged marriage with a man.
Trigger Warning Database 