The Feral Women's Institute

by Sherry Tolputt

‘The Feral Women’s Institute’ is a delightful, inventive and humorous twist on the cosy crime genre. It is also a story to give all middle-aged women hope.The tale begins with a parasite. Not a nasty life-threatening one; this one only eats Lycra. On the whole, it merely causes embarrassment to cyclists, several avant-garde productions at the ballet and some really memorable parties.However, it is potentially devastating to the Feral Women’s Institute, an underground society of older women, loosely descended from witches. Their members are everywhere; in charge of craft stalls, working at your local farmer’s market; in charge of the bouncy castles on Clacton beach. There’s almost certainly one on your Parish Council. There are more of them than you might realise as one of their superpowers is the ability to hide in plain view. They can also speak without being heard and have invented a handy device to harvest the energy from their hot flashes, storing the power in their special shoes so that they can charge their phones and power their cars for free. They call it the ‘Flashmewhatsit’.Although they try, mostly unsuccessfully, to right the wrongs of the patriarchy and hold society together for the good of humanity and the planet, their main offering is ‘The Change’ – a series of workshops comprising their 12-step program for oestrogen withdrawal. When your time comes, they will subtly make themselves known to you. They have an Achilles heel, though. After the witch-burning fashion of the late 1600s, the women retreated underground for safety. Over the generations, these simple burrows grew into extensive underground complexes. It transpires that the modern ventilation system in these subterranean tunnels is driven using pantyhose. It seemed a good idea at the time.Now their entire existence is threatened. Rose is the Feral WI’s lingerie designer. Her life’s work is to find the elusive ‘comfortable bra for the older woman’, but with all stretch fabrics in shreds, it falls to her to find the source of the parasite and save their entire way of life.She discovers that the culprit is Boz, an over-privileged genetic engineer and his evil, bulbous-headed sidekick, Miko. They love to cause chaos for their own entertainment and Miko feeds his fake news empire with the results of their evil-doings.This is an absurd and fantastical tale - a satirical romp that somehow marries the style of Agatha Christie and Douglas Adams to produce an easy-to-read, escapist satire of modern life which will draw you in and have you laughing out loud. If you are already a member of the Feral WI reading this, best wear your special knickers.

267 pages, Paperback

Published April 4, 2021