The Maiden

Based on the real life trial and execution of Lady Nimmo in seventeenth century Edinburgh, this is a gripping, feminist debut historical novel for fans of Stacey Halls and Sara Collins.

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'A masterpiece' — Janice Hallett, bestselling author of The Appeal

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2024
Shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger 2024
Winner of the Bloody Scotland Crime Debut of the Year 2023

Inspired by a real-life murder trial, Kate Foster's The Maiden is a remarkable story with a feminist revisionist twist that gives voices to women otherwise silenced by history.

In the end, it did not matter what I said at my trial. No one believed me.

Edinburgh, October 1679. Lady Christian is arrested and charged with the murder of her lover, James Forrester. News of her imprisonment and subsequent trial is splashed across the broadsides, with headlines that leave little room for doubt: Adulteress. Whore. Murderess.

Only a year before, Lady Christian was newly married, leading a life of privilege and respectability. So, what led her to risk everything for an affair? And does that make her guilty of murder? She wasn't the only woman in Forrester's life, and certainly not the only one who might have had cause to wish him dead . . .

'Exceptional — a tense, thrilling investigation, with a decidedly feminist slant' — Daily Mail

'Riveting . . . the tension persists until the last page’ — The Times

*The Maiden was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction on 05/03/2024