Atmospheric and visceral this is holy terror at its most unholy... and I am obsessed. Mere is a medieval folk horror gem of a novel that drags you deep into the Fens of 990 AD, where a convent rots from within. When the mere swallows a boy, the fragile order of prayer and devotion begins to unravel. Sister Hilda senses the secrets festering beneath the Abbess’s iron grip, and Sister Wulfrun arrives like a vision-haunted storm who may be savior or curse. Curses whispered in candlelight, visions that bleed into delirium, and devotion that curdles into hysteria. The prose is thick with damp air and dread, the atmosphere swamp-soaked and suffocating. This is folk horror on an exquisite level, medieval monastic life with mud and rot replacing sanctity. Danielle Giles doesn’t just tell a story; she submerges the reader in it until their skin smells of Fen water. If you want nuns with pitchforks and devotion unravelling into feral chaos, Mere will haunt you long after the last page.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Pan MacMillan for a digital copy of Mere by Danielle Giles in return for an honest review. Mere is set in the Fens of Norfolk in 990AD. Abbess Sigeburg is head of a convent of Christian nuns who live, work and pray together. The old ways - legends of giants, devils in the marshes, sacrifices and suchlike still exist, alongside their Christian beliefs and I expect it was exactly like this in these times. Hilda, one of the main characters, is the infirmarium; the healer of both the sisters and the local people. Having an interest in Medieval times I found this part really interesting. I went to the British Library’s exhibition on ‘Medieval Women - In Their Own Words’ recently and it was fascinating and so interesting. In Medieval times, women were not free and most had little say in their lives. This book is so atmospheric, it is almost possible to feel the claustrophobia and the isolation created by the mere as it encroaches due to the floods. Hope, survival and love are the feelings it evoked in me. It is eerie, dark and compelling and I enjoyed this book immensely.

A real treat of a book. Set within the walls of a convent, some time around the 7th Century we were given an insight into how the sisters within the convent, led their lives. The story puts across, very well, how hard life was for them and how they relied on potions and mixtures from wild fruits and flowers as remedies for their times of sickness. The story really gets across how hard life was for them, especially after the fire they experience. It’s a really atmospheric book and I found myself unable to put it down, wanting to know the outcome for our two main characters particularly. I also learned something from the story! I had no idea that Gippeswyk was a real place but kept thinking it almost had a ring of Ipswich to it. This is definitely one to read; totally enjoyable.

So sublimely atmospheric it had my fingertips tingling and toes curling from the first page. I admit I came for the brooding marshland, but I stayed for the psychological drama that amid the increasingly isolated nuns. Think a tenth-century Black Narcissus x Lord of the Flies x Picnic at Hanging Rock (as always, sorry not sorry for the niche comparisons!). ‘Mere’ plunges us into the world of Sister Hilda, in charge of her convent’s medical matters, when wealthy, widowed Wulfrun arrives to join the community. During Wulfrun’s journey, a boy from her household goes missing on the marsh from which the nuns’ meagre landholdings have been reclaimed. His disappearance stirs old secrets and fears, and sets in motion a series of events that threaten the whole community. The mere, with its mists and treacherous pools, broods ceaselessly in the background, matching the exquisitely escalating tension within the convent as things start to get serious. The sisters and their world are drawn with deft, sensory brilliance and tenderness: their lives and struggles feel almost tangible, while the exquisite writing, sprinkled with Anglo-Saxonesque phrases, kept the setting feeling appropriately historical without being forced or false. For me, the meeting of pagan and Christian ways was also depicted extremely well, with the similarities between them often being as striking as the differences. I spent my undergraduate years studying early Anglo-Saxon Christianity, so this was a rare treat. A warning though: it’s dangerously mesmerising. I found myself ‘reading while walking’ (a la Anna Burns’s ‘Milkman’, for those who’ve read it), and walking to the nearest marsh at that. Out in April from @mantlepressbooks. Big thanks to them and @netgalley for the advanced review copy. [AD / PR copy]

Mere by Danielle Giles is the kind of novel that wraps itself around you like the creeping fog of the Fens—at once beautiful, chilling, and impossible to ignore. Set in 990 AD in an isolated Norfolk monastery, Giles weaves a tale steeped in atmosphere, where pagan superstition clashes with the early roots of Christianity, and where faith is as much a weapon as a comfort. The story unfolds in a place of eerie quiet and ancient secrets, where every shadow whispers of something older and darker than the cloistered walls can contain. Hilda, the monastery’s infirmarian, is a quietly powerful presence, grounded in knowledge and intuition. As the layers peel back—after the mere claims a young boy—what’s revealed is a tangled web of power, fear, and buried desire. Sister Wulfrun’s arrival turns the already fragile order on its head. Her presence is electric, and the chemistry between her and Hilda is undeniable, complex, and beautifully drawn. Is Wulfrun divinely touched or dangerously deluded? Giles keeps that tension tight, blurring the lines between holiness and heresy, between devotion and defiance. I genuinely loved this book. It’s dark and mysterious in all the right ways, with prose that reads like incantation and imagery that lingers long after the final page. I thought the ending might turn one way—it didn’t—and yet, in retrospect, it couldn’t have ended any other. The resolution is quiet, but devastating. If you enjoy historical fiction that is full of atmosphere, explores faith and power with a deft hand, and doesn’t shy away from the unsettling, Mere is a must-read.