Sunwise by Helen Steadman Review and Blog Tour

Sunwise by Helen Steadman

I was so very excited and thrilled when I was invited to review and join the blog tour for the new book by Helen Steadman, Sunwise, which is a follow up to her earlier work Widdershins which I adored and you can read my review of that here 

As well as loving her writing style, Helen hails from the North East of England where I am from and as her books are based around true historical local events, the Newcastle witch trials, they have a special appeal for me. The covers are pretty stunning too so these books have it all.

My Review of Sunwise

Sunwise is the sequel to the wonderful Widdershins and if you haven’t read that yet, it’s a must-read for your wishlist. Both these amazing books are based on true events, the Newcastle witch trials of the mid 17th century. 

I find it utterly terrifying to think about the women who were hounded by men and executed for trumped-up accusations of witchcraft and how Helen has managed to steel herself to do the research on this subject for her books leaves me in awe but she has done a superb job and is able to transport her readers to an age when it was dangerous not just to gather herbs and try to help others but merely to be a woman. Yet this is a compelling if shameful subject and Helen gives a voice to one such cruelly treated soul in the creation of her main female protagonist Jane whose story graces these pages.

She weaves a deliciously dark, completely riveting story around Jane, a young woman accused of witchcraft who escapes execution in the first book, despite her Mother not being so fortunate. We rejoin her in Sunwise several years later as her life plays out whilst involved in local traditions and celebrations making corn dollies whilst her little girl Rose plays with her poppet doll and makes her mothers life difficult whilst being her sole reason to keep going. The book is a simmering cauldron of  ancient lore superstitions and forbidden love.

Jane is a character I really warmed to and I was delighted to pick up her story again in Sunwise as she struggles to bring up Rose whilst at the same time coping with her marriage to a man who has tricked her, who she never really loved but who offered her support and respectability at a time she was desperate and believed her betrothed to be dead at sea. So many women across the centuries have been oppressed by men, married through necessity to men they really don’t love and had so little free choice and Jane was one of these women who nevertheless tries to do her best to retain a little independence.

But her former lover Tom turns up, alive and well and just as much in love with Jane as ever (and she with him) and the pair set in motion a plan destined to spell tragedy. Jane meanwhile continues to use her knowledge of herbs and potions learnt from her late "Wise Woman" Mother, to help women in dire straits and desperate. Her husband won’t have any truck with this and she has to keep her actions hidden, poor Jane with secrets to keep and much to hide.

Meanwhile in Berwick, hides cruel, obsessive Witch Finder John Sharpe, unstable and determined to eventually wreak vengeance on Jane and denounce her as a witch. Meanwhile he licks his wounds, and simmers with rage and buried lusts as he tries to revive his career as a witchfinder. Close to the Border with Scotland where he plans to try women as witches and begin his spiralling insane quest to rid Britain of women he believes are witches. But he is unhinged and unbalanced and his judgement leaves much to be desired and as he dwells in a humble Inn, temptation beckons and threatens to tip him over the edge he is already teetering on.

I couldn’t put this book down, it had my heart beating fast and my imagination fired up. But what I was led quite gently towards was a very unexpected shocking ending that rose up and left me weeping and shaken. In her footnotes at the end of the book the Author says she lightened up the book a little as her critique group suggested. Thank heavens I didn’t read the original even darker version, I’d have been undone. 


Unmissable and undeniably bewitching Sunwise is a must read for all lovers of women’s history with a soupcon of reality mixed in with an authors wonderful imagination and skill with words. As is often the case with such books it truly makes me grateful I live in the 21st century and not the 17th.

The Blurb

When Jane’s lover, Tom, returns from the navy to find her unhappily married to his betrayer, Jane is caught in an impossible situation. Still reeling from the loss of her mother at the hands of the witch-finder John Sharpe, Jane has no choice but to continue her dangerous work as a healer while keeping her young daughter safe.

But, as Tom searches for a way for him and Jane to be together, the witch-finder is still at large. Filled with vengeance, John will stop at nothing in his quest to rid England of the scourge of witchcraft.

Inspired by true events, Sunwise tells the story of one woman’s struggle for survival in a hostile and superstitious world.