Fun fact: when I need a last name for a character in my books and nothing immediately springs to mind, I usually name end up borrowing a last name from an author I know and/or enjoy. This is how Martha McCabe in WOMAN 99 got her name; and if you’ve seen the name of today’s #read99women guest, you’ve already made the connection.

(I’d actually first considered borrowing Martha’s surname from the wonderful writer Amy Stewart, who graciously gave an early blurb for GIRL IN DISGUISE. But that would have made the character’s name Martha Stewart, which you probably know is already taken. So I swapped a few things around, the character of the nurse in WOMAN 99’s Terpsichore ward got the last name Stewart, and Martha McCabe got her alliteration.)

Author of the novel I SHALL BE NEAR TO YOU, Erin Lindsay McCabe studied Literature at University of California, Santa Cruz, and taught high school English before completing her MFA at St. Mary's College of California in 2010. She has taught Composition at St. Mary's and Butte College and resides in Northern California with her husband and son and a small menagerie that includes one dog, two cats, two horses, twenty chickens, and eight goats.

Her recommendation THE WITCHFINDER’S SISTER, by Beth Underdown, is set in 1645 England. The novel imagines a fictional sister for the notorious Matthew Hopkins, self-appointed Witchfinder General. Through her eyes we see the horror of what “witch hunt,” now a mere expression, really meant in its day.

Erin praises the book’s writing and the use of historical documents as chapter beginnings, then continues: “But what I liked best of all and what I think is most masterfully done is the way each relationship is portrayed with subtlety and nuance, the way the ease at which people can be manipulated into doing terrible things is explored, and the steady build of dread, as we wonder what, exactly, Matthew (the witch finder) has planned and how much manipulation he is capable of.“

Click here to read the rest of Erin’s recommendation on BookBub.

And I’m trying something new with the format on these posts — want to see the cover of THE WITCHFINDER’S SISTER? Let’s see if it works:

Oooh, pretty.