Mere

by Danielle Giles

The mere has fingers.
Clever fingers to reach through the marsh and wrap around little ankles.
Strong arms to pull poor sinners downwards.
And a great gaping belly that can never be filled . . .

Mere by Danielle Giles is a strikingly beautiful historical novel about fear and survival, power and position, and a love that takes hold in the darkest of places.

Norfolk, 990 AD. Deep in the Fens, isolated by a vast and treacherous mere, an order of holy sisters make their home. Under the steely guidance of Abbess Sigeburg they follow God’s path, looking to their infirmarian, Hilda, to provide what comfort and cures she can.

But when the mere takes a young servant boy, Sigeburg’s grip falters and Hilda quickly realises this place holds secrets darker and more unholy than she can fathom.

Then proud Sister Wulfrun, a recent arrival to the convent, has a a curse is upon them and change must be brought. Is she saint or serpent? To Hilda, Wulfrun is a signal bolder and brighter than any fire set – one she cannot help but follow . . .

Genres: Historical Fiction, Horror, Historical, Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Lesbian

384 pages, Paperback

First published April 3, 2025

Reviews

[Nat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hot lesbian date idea: stage a coup in the cursed medieval convent

[Carl (Hiatus. IBB in Jan) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I lift no weapon, but kill more than the bravest warrior.
I live on women’s tongues and in men’s minds. I am a spilt pot, a razed city.
I am light as air, heavy as stone. No leechbook has cures for me, nor heroes swords against me."

Mere is an accomplished atmospheric debut novel by Danielle Giles. With lyrical writing, she imbues a sense of creeping foreboding and entrapment transporting the reader to an isolated convent surrounded by marshlands and ice-cold water and less than 200 souls. The novel explores themes of faith, superstition, manipulation, sexuality and politics, narrated in lyrical prose, revealing a unique new voice in English literature. Giles has innate talent in blending historical fiction and folklore elements, creating a compelling narrative with superb imagery that makes you feel the dampness of the mere and looming presence of an ancient power. “I feel no evil in it. No good either. It is vast and old and slow.”

Giles excels at character development, with each character having their own distinctive voice - a literary accomplishment. Abbess Sigeburg is a stoic, controlling woman who will "strangle you with scripture and punishment and insist that you thank her." Wulfrun, a mysterious woman who arrives at the convent under difficult circumstances, her past shadowed by pain and betrayal. Hilda, the four-decade-old infirmarian, is deeply absorbed in the convent’s life carrying for the ill but still keeps a sharp, observant mind and tongue. I could go on and on with the list of well-written characters, but as previously said, Giles' characterisation is superb. Her prose is rich and immersive, balancing historical detail with an almost fairy-tale quality.

Mere is a story about women navigating the confines of a convent at the borders under the looming presence of the mere. Despite the convent’s strict religious structure, older, darker beliefs simmer beneath the surface. The presence of the mere, its mythology, and the fear it instils create a sense of unease. The whispers of curses, omens, and unnatural forces blur the lines between folklore and reality playing an essential part in the story. Early, on the way of the abbess' return from Gipeswick with a small company of travelers and food rations for the winter, a kid is lost near the mere, and the sisters are quick to assign supernatural blame: "The other sisters say that a devil has woken in the marsh, taken the boy for his own." setting ablaze a series of events contributing to the mass hysteria soon to be unleashed.

Giles’ prose is vivid and immersive, seamlessly weaving folklore into Christian tradition. “I know better than to tell him otherwise, though from what I have seen the water-elf disease pales the nails and dampens the eyes, none of which afflicts Oswy. And so I gather together the needed herbs, mixing them with ale and holy water and singing over them a charm.” The dialogue is sharp, the characterisation layered and the themes deeply resonant. While some readers may find the pacing slow, it serves the purpose of creating tension and danger. The novel explores the power dynamics between the sisters—with a caveat. Giles also questions how faith is weaponised, how suffering is framed as divine will, and how people in power use faith to manipulate. The convent’s hierarchy is a constant source of tension, with alliances and rivalries shaping the fate of the sisters. ”She is a little serpent who thinks I do not mark her poison.”

The novel is also unflinching in its portrayal of sexual desire - and some Christians may find it blasphemous even. The relationship between Hilda and Wulfrun is charged, sensual, and depicted with powerful language. "When I slide my face between her thighs and taste her sour-sweet cunt, I feel as if I would not care if they heard us all the way in Gipeswic." Giles does not shy away from rawness, and these moments of intimacy stand in stark contrast to the rigid, punishing atmosphere of the convent. Toward the end, secrets unravel and long-held resentments come to a final climax igniting a fiery rebellion. The final part is brutal, gripping and utterly satisfying, if eerie and subtle. It will require a moment of reflection to grasp the full meaning of this incredible novel.

Mere is a stunning, evocative novel that lingers long after the final page. It is a novel of power, faith, and manipulation told with exquisite prose and an unflinching eye for historical and emotional truth. Highly recommended for readers who appreciate historical fiction blended with folklore and queer representation.

Rating: 4.0/5

Disclaimer: I received an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Quotes might differ slightly from the final printed version

[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review soon!

[Ceinwen Langley]

Bittersweet and lovely. I love mystical gay bog nuns.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was probably my biggest disappointment of the year thus far, alas. I loved everything about the premise of Danielle Giles's debut novel, Mere. A group of tenth-century nuns living in the Norfolk fens come to believe that they are cursed, and that something in the nearby mere has brought this upon them... the same thing that means they must never go into the mere alone. This ticked all my boxes - sapphic convent, isolated fenland, supernatural horror - and it has a fantastic cover to boot. But I spent half of this book trying to figure out why this wasn't working for me and, when I realised nothing was going to change, gave up. I think the problem might have been Giles's writing. It's serviceable enough, with occasional powerful moments - the prologue is very nicely done - but needed so much more atmosphere. (Being stuck in the always-limiting first-person present tense did not help). The setting is barely sketched and our characters are placeholders. The narrator and protagonist, Hilda, is, like 99% of fictional nuns, the convent's infirmarian and healer, so naturally a bit at odds with the rest, and that's about it for her. There's also very little engagement with a time that is very far from our own; five hundred years after Mere, Henry VIII would not yet have ascended to the throne. The characters' thinking about sexuality and faith, in particular, feels very modern, and although I can get on board with a playfully modern historical novel - Lauren Groff's Matrix is the obvious counterpart - I didn't think Giles was going for that vibe. Oh, and yes, the inevitable romance comes out of nowhere. I'm sad, because I really wanted to love this. DNF @ 42%.

I received a free proof copy of this novel from the publisher for review.

[Maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

***UPDATED ***
Excuse me, but why is this not read by everyone???
****
I didn’t expect to love this book so immensely. We follow the live of a convent in 990 AD where our MC is the infirmarian Hilda. And what a character she is, absolutely devoted to humans and healing, but after the arrival of another woman the story takes a sinister turn. This is a historical fiction set in times of young Christianity and old paganism still existing together in a small community. The hidden legend of a Mere-Devil, waking to take a sacrifice is surfacing after years and our brave sisters have to try and save their community against the pestilence, hunger and floods of biblical proportions. Astonishingly written, this book has so much heart and soul, deep love and suffering, faith and sacrifice. The love between Hilda and sister Wulfrun was very touching. I cried my eyes out and I am so happy that I had the chance to read this masterful piece of literature. A debut to be remembered. I will be first in line for every new book that Giles writes.
Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for providing me with the ARC.

[Lewis Boyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

goat sacrifice, accurate old english place names, lesbian nuns.

good and easy.

[Emiline · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book put me in a slump whilst also simultaneously being the book that got me out of my slump. slay hilda.

[paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that evil has been with us a long time. [...] We are rotting, slowly, and do not know it yet.

the writing here is absolutely stunning; lyrical and spare at once. the deftly woven atmosphere turns this into a beautifully haunting narrative, a slow and creeping tale of horror (though very low on the horror scale overall!). i assume meticulous research went into this and i loved the depiction of Norfolk in the late 10th century -- Anglo-Saxon culture interwoven with remnants of older British culture, impacted by the viking invasions, Christianity still tinged with older pagan customs that retain their hold on people. this cultural and linguistic diversity was reflected in the characters, many of them with vastly differing backgrounds even as they live together in a small, isolated convent and the adjoining village.

She is a spear of a woman, slicing through the days and years here and never wavering. But the storm's wind might take even the best spear off-course and for a heartbeat she is silent.

this was a rather slow read for me, though it remained utterly immersive. i found myself returning back to the world of this novel in thought all the time. in addition to the setting, the character work is immaculate. this was complex, and moving, and i was dragged right into the depth of despair felt by the characters.

most remarkably, the author manages to turn all of this into a love story unlike anything i have ever read before. it's rather hard to describe, and this is certainly no "romance". it just really did something to me.

I understand now that I had thought [...] we had a thousand nights ahead of us and a thousand more mornings.
'Spin a vision for me,' I say. 'Tell me how this might have been, in a better world.'
She smiles, weakly. 'You ask for the stars themselves.'

and i mean ... lesbian nuns!!!

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4⭐️
Once I got into this, I was fully invested. I can't tell you why, I just enjoyed being pulled along by the story, mostly due to Hilda. It was an intriguing but odd reading experience.

[Brecht Reintsema · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5 ⭐

A beautiful, bittersweet story about love in times of hardship and nature (or the supernatural?) that bites back.

Strange enough, this book fits not one, but twó weirdly specific subgenres on my shelf: books about lesbian medieval nuns, and books about bogs!

I am quick to love medieval fiction, but this book was especially well crafted. We see the world through the eyes of convent healer Hilda, and experience the senses of her crowded but surprisingly cosy infirmary, of the strange landscape of the marsh, of the creeping curse that seems to linger in the air and, perhaps most scary of all, Hilda's growing attachment to one of her fellow nuns.

It is a very character-focussed story. What happens to a small community if everything starts going wrong? Who do you trust, who do you turn to? At times cruel and grim, at times tender and touching. With a beautiful love story central to the book.

And constantly in the background: what is up with that bog???? I personally love the folk-horror-y vibe that lingers around bogs and marshes and this book is a perfect example of this. How do you live in a place that does not want you there? Some aspects reminded me a lot of Fayne by Ann-Marie MacDonald in how the bog is a true character in the story. I was also pleasantly surprised how this book mixes Christian elements with folklore in a way that feels very historically accurate.

So if you need to either up your dose of lesbian medieval nuns, or of creepy marshland, look no further! All jokes aside, even if you are not interested in either of those, this is a hauntingly beautiful story with such well-written passages on life, love and death that I feel like I underlined about half of it. Definitely recommend!

[Katrina Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 990AD, Hilda lives as in a convent deep in the Norfolk fens, where other civilisation is distant, rarely accessible through the fogbound labyrinth of the surrounding wilds. Hilda is an infirmarian, collecting, mixing and giving remedies and care to the holy order of sisters and the priests who live in this tightknit community. The Abbess and way of life are strict, yet these people worship both a Christian god, and powers that are much older. Their secrets and desires linger, despite doctrine.

One day, a woman named Wulfrun appears at the threshold, a new addition to the convent. She is richly dressed, imposing and in distress. A servant boy who travelled with her from her old home has been lost in the fens and she persuades any she can do help her search for the boy.

Finding him is one thing, finding him still sane and untainted by a devilish power is something else.

The backstory of Wulfrun, the priests, the other sisters and their complicated webs of mistrust all begin to unravel in suspicion and fear as rumours of curses and divine punishment poison the convent.

The love. The lust. The power plays. I was gripped.

I'm rambling now, after what was a nest start to this review. This book is bloody great.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eerie and moving gothic that often highlights the hypocrisy of organised religion. I enjoyed the perspective of the protagonist, Hilda, who after being raised in a convent is both naive and jaded in turn. Her often witty commentary on the struggles of her sisters with sin and propriety was a joy to read, and the ending was very satisfying. There were some unexpectedly heartbreaking moments, I wasn’t expecting such a rollercoaster of emotions. Wonderful book!

Thank you to Pan MacMillan and NetGalley for the ARC

[Chanel Chapters]

DNF

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

i loved the second half of this, creepy bog and lesbian nuns what more could a girl ask for!

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘It is not wrong to wish not to suffer.’

This is a novel narrating a landscape (a bit like the recent Historical Fantasy Gorse by Sam K. Horton). I spent time living in the area where ‘Mere’ is situated, and completed some research into the history of the environment there, so I’m familiar with its specific kind of dour and dismal character, and appreciate the possibilities it opens up atmospherically for fiction with its brooding mercurial gloom (which is also demonstrated marvellously by Stella Tillyard in The Great Level):

‘the marsh has fingers and it reaches out above water below water and all those places that are both at once and it shelters those fat clotted leeches dreaming of springblood and beneath them trembling beetle eggs one day to be snapped up by pike sharptooth and there are eels knotted with blacksmith muscle and they could take a man’s hand if they wished’.

The principal delight in Danielle Giles’s writing is its precision. At first, it appears weightless and wispy, effortlessly pitter-pattering like light on fenland water. Perhaps it feels that way because she is writing both about an enigmatic landscape, rendered mysterious both literally and figuratively by mist, but also because she is writing about the Christian god and the faith practised by the women of a medieval convent, which are – by their very nature – ungraspable, ephemeral things. Giles’s tender touch is what I wanted from Lauren Groff’s Matrix, and what it failed to deliver as I DNF’ed it.

Upon closer study of ‘Mere’, the translucency of Giles’s style cedes to an uncommon intensity, bound to her representation of female queerness, which offers the reader divers episodes, sometimes delightful, sometimes pitiful:

‘I wish we could stay here,’ I say. ‘With no hunger, no thirst. It would be our Eden.’
‘Two Eves,’ muses Wulfrun. ‘One too many.’

The backbone of ‘Mere’ – in my view – is a deep, deep immersion in the character of Hilda, the kind of incarnation-in-prose that not every author can achieve with characterisation. Every personality is distinctive, bold as they take their parts in the playing-out of the convent’s dark decline. I expected Abbess Sigeburg to dominate (‘For all her faults, our Mother Superior has always been able to gather hope to her. It let her raise the convent out of this sodden earth four decades ago, let her bully and trick gold and tithes and relics from whoever would pay’), but it is to Hilda and Wulfrun that the narrative pays its devotion:

‘I can hear Wulfrun’s heartbeat, the soft workings of her muscles and the rushing of her belly. A whole kingdom, inside of her. When she begins to speak, it is a tremble through her and a tremble through me’.

As the plot extricates itself from the mythology of the mere, from omens, from ‘the curse’, from the shattering episodes of violence (‘I am sparrow-weak lamb-meek a kicked cur called to heel and I do not want them to hurt me’), the prose is vivid, the pacing is slow, yet the most exquisite element is revealed to be the tension Giles indites as the descent into unholiness is tallied against the ultimate ascent towards secular redemptive love.

‘I think of foxes and mice. How there is no deadlier time for both than the silence before the leap. The mouse might escape and condemn the fox to starve. Or, the fox might be the victor and crunch sharp bones in sharper teeth. But for the span of a held breath, none know their fate.’

My thanks go to Pan MacMillan and NetGalley for the ARC of this fine debut.

[Paulina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an impressive debut. Beautifully written, in a way that just pulls you in, extremely atmospheric and engaging.

A young boy goes missing in the mere which sets off a series of terrible events. Is there a real curse set on the land? Is there something more powerful and dark living within the mere? Or is it just a series of unfortunate events that are being used for multiple power plays within the convent? I loved how the book continuously played with my expectations about where this story would go. I think until the end it never really forced an answer on the reader but rather let the story flow and let me get pulled along into these increasingly unsettling developments.

Our main character is Hilda, an infirmarian who has seemingly equal connection to spells and healing related more to old gods, as well as her Christian faith. I loved how this book showed the mix between the old traditions and how hard it was for people to give them up in favour of Christianity. Aside from Hilda this books is filled with unique characters, all who have their own unique personalities and go through their own journeys. I found it especially impressive since I'm usually bad at remembering a large cast of characters, but this story made everyone feel so distinctive that they were never difficult to follow.

In the end, no matter how cheesy it might sound, it is a story about the power of love. How the shared burden is a burden halved. I'll admit I never expected this story to have a happy ending, not after it made me cry so many times throughout it. But I thought it was a beautiful and a poetic ending. I thought the relationship between Hilda and Wulfrun was magical and sweet and I could have happily spent another 200 pages with them.

I look forward to more books from Danielle Giles.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

INCREDIBLE!!!

This is an atmospheric, haunting and immersive story. I was absolutely absorbed from the first chapter! This is a character-driven, eerie novel unlike anything I've read before. I can see people saying this is all vibes and no plot but to me the plot is the interpersonal drama of the community around this convent and how they deal with this folklore-esque horror unfolding in a way that challenges their religion. It's really claustrophobic at times and full of suspense, and the way some of the events unfold alongside each other just enrich the themes of the story over and over again. It's masterful! The prose is also super beautiful, the characters are deep and complex... I was just IN AWE! I barely wanted this book to be over.

Thank you Book Break for gifting me a copy of this book! All opinions are my own.

Content warnings: Death, violence, injury detail, miscarriage, homophobia, misogyny, slavery, abuse

[Arturo · Rating 4 out of 5]

monjas medievales lesbianas en un convento maldito 10/10

[Alice Lamora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully atmospheric, gorgeous prose and sapphic nuns. I really enjoyed it.

At times it felt a bit too modern for its setting however.

[Milly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was such a rollercoaster. Bonus points for gay nuns

[Anna Preston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Queer Anglo-Saxon nuns in a quasi-pagan landscape…what’s not to like

[ClaireJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mere isn’t published until April 2025 but I just couldn’t resist picking it up after reading the blurb about it!

It is a piece of historical fiction set in 990’s Norfolk, in a crumbling convent where the main character Hilda lives and is the infirmarian there. The convent is located by a mere where there is talk of something evil lurking in its waters.

The nuns are isolated in the dilapidated convent due to flooding and fear, causing panic and later suspicion between each other when more disasters occur.

I absolutely adored Hilda, she was such a strong and admirable character. There was one heartbreaking scene in particular between her and another character I loved that made me want to weep. It was so tender and moving.

Mere is a captivating story about survival, love, power and fear. It shows the influence of religion and myth and how people react and panic, looking for someone to blame when in peril. The supernatural elements and a curse created an incredible atmosphere.

It reminded me a bit of Lauren Groff’s Matrix so if that is a book you enjoyed, I recommend this one. This just has more of a creepy, gothic vibe to it.

Mere deserves to be a hit when it is published. The writing is breathtakingly exquisite and powerful. I look forward to reading more from the author in the future.

[Jamie Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really gorgeous, the network of relationships is astounding and serves as the driving force of the novel as tensions rise and loyalties shift, grow and shatter. Though the folk horror aspect isn't as prevalent as I anticipated, I was not disappointed by the drama. Also love sapphics.

[F · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am all for bogs and queer medievalisms and even more for monastic power struggles but this was really tryingly overwritten :(

[Holly Cruise]

Norfolk, a closed off, claustrophobic prison, a fenland difficult to cross and deadly for those who don't know its ways, an oppressive religious fervour where the religions involved are a mix of authoritarian Christianity and the creepy and transactional old ways.

But enough about my holiday in 2020, let's talk about Mere!

Mere is set in 990AD Norfolk, in a nunnery beset with failing crops, failing leadership and failing faith. We follow infirmarian Hilda, as she struggled to keep her sisters and the villagers alive especially once a curse from the strange fenland sets in. Can Hilda, her infirmary bffs Tove and Mildred, her mum Sweet, and the interesting new sister/prophet(?) Wulfrun survive the winter?

Really enjoyed this. Descriptively it hems you into its foetid environs, the mould practically growing on each page, the cold only broken by multiple extremely bad appearances from fire. Giles's writing is gripping and efficient, the story moves in ways I wasn't necessarily always expecting, but it still manages to foreshadow its movements well. I am certainly not venturing into any meres without a guide from now on (I live in a dry part of the country, I don't think I've ever ventured into a mere).

[Eleanor]

I hereby crown Mere Gay Nun Book of the Year. [some spoilers, I guess?] That sounds sarcastic and mean, but hey—we had Lauren Groff's Matrix (2021), now we've got this, this is starting to look like a subgenre. What's interesting about Mere, which otherwise has a fairly standard tussle for convent leadership at the centre of its plot, is that it takes the supernatural, and the tension between pagan worship and an imperfectly Christianised populace, seriously. It's obvious from early on that there's something inexplicable about the behaviour of people who get lost in the marsh that surrounds this East Anglian convent, something that isn't attributable to simple disorientation or the aftereffects of exposure. Those who don't die return changed, apparently able to perceive far more of the natural world around them, and able to pass that perception on to anyone who physically touches them. If Mary Stewart's Merlin novels count as fantasy—and she won the Mythopoeic Award for two of them—this certainly does too. For the most part the medieval setting is evoked effectively. There's a sensory and sensual groundedness that the best fiction of this kind has (I'm thinking of Nicola Griffith's Hild, or Sylvia Townsend Warner's The Corner That Held Them, or Stewart's Merlin novels again, or Mantel's Wolf Hall) that Mere doesn't quite have, although there are definitely extraordinarily evocative moments: the scene of the whippings administered to errant sisters on Christmas Eve, for example. The lesbian nuns feel more right than Groff's, though; it's not just about sex but also about emotional connection and intensity. Well worth picking up. Source: NetGalley; publishing 3 April

[Trina Dixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having lived near the fens and knowing how remote and bleak they can be, it was easy to take myself back to 990AD.
An isolated convent ruled by the Abbess with the aid of her most senior nuns. Sister Hilda, the infirmarian, does her best to keep everyone as healthy as possible with her limited means. The Mere takes a young child and confuses his mind, a curse appears to be brought on the convent and the sisters discover a darkness that has surrounded them.
I found this book a slow read but very atmospheric and supernatural. I think it's a book you'll need to read again to understand it fully. I certainly will.

[Pien · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was nothing like i'd expected it would be but i still loved it. for starter, it was less about the ancient curse from the depth of the creepy marsh and more about the nuns themselves and the dynamics within the convent and without. the conspiracies gripping, the scandals juicy, the characters so so alive, the writing gorgeous and atmospheric, although there's this little stylistic choice during moments of tension that i didn't love and forced me to knock down half a star from my final rating. the romance so sweet and tender, even more so in such a harsh and seemingly hopeless situation, and sucking me in like a swamp (see what i did there). 4.5 stars.

[samah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning was definitely a trek but once things started spiralling they SPIRALLED. Absolutely devoured the last half and definitely will again