The Maiden

'A masterpiece' – Janice Hallett, bestselling author of The Appeal and The Twyford Code

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

'A mystery full of twists' – The Times

Winner of the Bloody Scotland Pitch Perfect Award 2022 and the Bloody Scotland Crime Debut of the Year 2023. Kate Foster's The Maiden is a remarkable story with a feminist revisionist twist, inspired by a real-life case, giving a voice 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 . . .

'Threat hangs over every page like the awaiting guillotine, but the women in this book gleam sharper. Witty, gritty and full of heart, their voices rise through the brutality and hardship of 17th century Edinburgh, battling to be heard' – Cari Thomas, bestselling author of Threadneedle