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The Hanged Woman's Daughter
The Hanged Woman’s Daughter
Newfoundland, 1835
Where does a person go when she loses her family, her home, and her place in a community? What can she do when she feels she doesn’t belong anywhere and to anyone?
The disappearance of John Snow from Salmon Cove is shrouded in mystery. Nevertheless, Catherine, his wife, was convicted of complicity in his murder and hanged.
Now, Bridget, their eldest daughter, faces the challenge of losing more than her family and their home. She risks losing herself as she sets out on a mysterious journey, and her future unfolds in a way she had not dared imagine.
Award-winning author Nellie P. Strowbridge weaves a tantalizing tale of the elusive Bridget Snow, the scattering of her family by a heartless magistrate, and her attempt at anonymity─all on the heels of her mother’s execution. A poignant and engrossing novel, sure to enthrall Strowbridge’s readers to its astonishing conclusion.
Newfoundland, 1835
Where does a person go when she loses her family, her home, and her place in a community? What can she do when she feels she doesn’t belong anywhere and to anyone?
The disappearance of John Snow from Salmon Cove is shrouded in mystery. Nevertheless, Catherine, his wife, was convicted of complicity in his murder and hanged.
Now, Bridget, their eldest daughter, faces the challenge of losing more than her family and their home. She risks losing herself as she sets out on a mysterious journey, and her future unfolds in a way she had not dared imagine.
Award-winning author Nellie P. Strowbridge weaves a tantalizing tale of the elusive Bridget Snow, the scattering of her family by a heartless magistrate, and her attempt at anonymity─all on the heels of her mother’s execution. A poignant and engrossing novel, sure to enthrall Strowbridge’s readers to its astonishing conclusion.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
231 pages, Paperback
Published March 10, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 11, 2021
Beautifully written; poetic and poignant. A story of family, loss and the ties that bind.
When Bridget Snow loses her mother and, subsequently, has her siblings torn away from her, she leaves her family home and embarks on what turns out not only to be a perilous journey, but also, ultimately, one of self discovery, love and redemption.
The characters in this book are charming, well developed, relatable and quintessentially Newfoundland. Bridget does her very best to push people away from her including Bess and Terrance who have taken her in and welcomed her to their home. Terrance, having saved her from a likely death at sea, and Bess, a grandmother who sees something worth saving in Bridget. Having their own somewhat murky past and their own secrets to keep, they can understand why Bridget (or Shillelagh as they’ve come to know her) keeps so quiet about what she did and who she was before she arrived in Pirate’s Cove. Over time, Bridget comes to see that these two people have become her family; she has developed strong feelings for Terrance - ones she feels are returned- and she can now see a future for herself, one that she never thought would be possible.
When mysterious letter arrives, requesting Bridget’s presence in St. John’s at a particular time and place, the reader may worry that perhaps Bridget will not get her happy ending after all. The letter is unsigned. Will it be friend or foe? Bridget is fearful but also feels an inexplicable pull to do what the letter asks of her. What follows is an emotional but cathartic and life changing experience for her.
The ending of this book gave me chills, the final chapter utterly satisfactory. If you are a fan of historical fiction especially that which is set in Newfoundland, you cannot miss out on “The Hanged Woman’s Daughter.”
When Bridget Snow loses her mother and, subsequently, has her siblings torn away from her, she leaves her family home and embarks on what turns out not only to be a perilous journey, but also, ultimately, one of self discovery, love and redemption.
The characters in this book are charming, well developed, relatable and quintessentially Newfoundland. Bridget does her very best to push people away from her including Bess and Terrance who have taken her in and welcomed her to their home. Terrance, having saved her from a likely death at sea, and Bess, a grandmother who sees something worth saving in Bridget. Having their own somewhat murky past and their own secrets to keep, they can understand why Bridget (or Shillelagh as they’ve come to know her) keeps so quiet about what she did and who she was before she arrived in Pirate’s Cove. Over time, Bridget comes to see that these two people have become her family; she has developed strong feelings for Terrance - ones she feels are returned- and she can now see a future for herself, one that she never thought would be possible.
When mysterious letter arrives, requesting Bridget’s presence in St. John’s at a particular time and place, the reader may worry that perhaps Bridget will not get her happy ending after all. The letter is unsigned. Will it be friend or foe? Bridget is fearful but also feels an inexplicable pull to do what the letter asks of her. What follows is an emotional but cathartic and life changing experience for her.
The ending of this book gave me chills, the final chapter utterly satisfactory. If you are a fan of historical fiction especially that which is set in Newfoundland, you cannot miss out on “The Hanged Woman’s Daughter.”
April 3, 2021
The Hanged Woman’s Daughter [Flanker Press] answers a question I’ve mused about occasionally ever since Confederation pupped, when I was a wee Protestant bay-boy. However, considering neither the question nor the answer is intrinsically important to the book’s storyline, I will return to them the once.
In the meantime …
Catherine Snow was the last woman hanged in Newfoundland — July 21, 1834 — arguably for a crime she didn’t commit. As with the former bay-boy’s question and answer though, The Hanged Woman’s Daughter is not about Catherine Snow, per se.
The protagonist of The Hanged Woman’s Daughter is Catherine Snow’s daughter, Bridget.
The title makes it plain, eh b’ys?
Following her mother’s hanging, and her father’s earlier disappearance, Bridget is in a woeful position. Then, between them, The Magistrate and The Bishop rub salt in her wounds, so to speak. They claim the family property and foster out a slew of Bridget’s younger sisters and brothers.
Burdened with despair, Bridget climbs into her father punt, shuffs off from the stagehead and rows out to sea. She doesn’t seem to care if she rows into fog banks in which there be dragons, or off the edge of a platter-flat earth.
Eventually exhausted, like a mariner becalmed in the doldrums, Bridget ships her oars and drifts …
… until young Terrence Shea discovers her and takes her home to Pirate’s Cove where she dwells for the rest of the book
.
I’d bet a loonie some of you are itching to know if a love story develops after Bridget moves in with Terrence and his grandmother.
Maybe. Who’s to say?
I could, I s’pose, since I’ve read the novel. But I won’t.
I will say this: a witchy woman capable of concocting potions — be they love potions or tonics — lives in Pirate’s Cove.
Whatever…
The horrors associated with her mother’s hanging haunt Bridget. And would you wonder? Catherine Snow was not only hanged by the neck but also her body was quartered, dissected, anatomized.
Just reading about such barbarity gives me the willy-wahs, so I’m going to speak of something nicer.
Imagery.
This one inspired me to doodle a Happy Face in the margin: After a swally of moonshine, “He (William somebody or other)left wheezing and whistling, his breath like a squeezed southerly wind.”
Here’s another: Bridget is downhearted, “her body heavy as a killick dragged along a stony seabed.”
A brace of gem-dandy images, eh b’ys?
Shame on me, I almost forgot to mention the mean mummers.
The first Christmas after Catherine’s hanging (and quartering, for frig sake), a mummer shows up at Bridget’s door with a noose draped around his neck. A second mummer with “not a familiar article of clothing on him” whispers in Bridget’s ear, “There’s wolves about.”
Nasty mummers, eh b’ys, unlike the “twenty or more” latter-day mummers who entertain Dear Granny in “The Mummers’ Song”, renowned here on The Rock.
The Hanged Woman’s Daughter is a well-spun yarn, a homespun yarn. Its historical facts are knitted into a tale that, if woven, could be displayed as a tapestry.
And as stated earlier, the book answers a bay-boy’s — or an aged curmudgeon’s — lifelong question.
In the previous century, when I was a wee Protestant bay-boy, Mammy chastised me Sunday after Sunday for running at play. I’ve always questioned why running was forbidden on Sundays. I assumed it was for fear I’d fall and rip the knees out of my Sunday pants.
Nah. Not the reason.
According to The Hanged Woman’s Daughter, Mammy’s real fear was that I’d fall down and break a Commandment.
Thank you for reading.
In the meantime …
Catherine Snow was the last woman hanged in Newfoundland — July 21, 1834 — arguably for a crime she didn’t commit. As with the former bay-boy’s question and answer though, The Hanged Woman’s Daughter is not about Catherine Snow, per se.
The protagonist of The Hanged Woman’s Daughter is Catherine Snow’s daughter, Bridget.
The title makes it plain, eh b’ys?
Following her mother’s hanging, and her father’s earlier disappearance, Bridget is in a woeful position. Then, between them, The Magistrate and The Bishop rub salt in her wounds, so to speak. They claim the family property and foster out a slew of Bridget’s younger sisters and brothers.
Burdened with despair, Bridget climbs into her father punt, shuffs off from the stagehead and rows out to sea. She doesn’t seem to care if she rows into fog banks in which there be dragons, or off the edge of a platter-flat earth.
Eventually exhausted, like a mariner becalmed in the doldrums, Bridget ships her oars and drifts …
… until young Terrence Shea discovers her and takes her home to Pirate’s Cove where she dwells for the rest of the book
.
I’d bet a loonie some of you are itching to know if a love story develops after Bridget moves in with Terrence and his grandmother.
Maybe. Who’s to say?
I could, I s’pose, since I’ve read the novel. But I won’t.
I will say this: a witchy woman capable of concocting potions — be they love potions or tonics — lives in Pirate’s Cove.
Whatever…
The horrors associated with her mother’s hanging haunt Bridget. And would you wonder? Catherine Snow was not only hanged by the neck but also her body was quartered, dissected, anatomized.
Just reading about such barbarity gives me the willy-wahs, so I’m going to speak of something nicer.
Imagery.
This one inspired me to doodle a Happy Face in the margin: After a swally of moonshine, “He (William somebody or other)left wheezing and whistling, his breath like a squeezed southerly wind.”
Here’s another: Bridget is downhearted, “her body heavy as a killick dragged along a stony seabed.”
A brace of gem-dandy images, eh b’ys?
Shame on me, I almost forgot to mention the mean mummers.
The first Christmas after Catherine’s hanging (and quartering, for frig sake), a mummer shows up at Bridget’s door with a noose draped around his neck. A second mummer with “not a familiar article of clothing on him” whispers in Bridget’s ear, “There’s wolves about.”
Nasty mummers, eh b’ys, unlike the “twenty or more” latter-day mummers who entertain Dear Granny in “The Mummers’ Song”, renowned here on The Rock.
The Hanged Woman’s Daughter is a well-spun yarn, a homespun yarn. Its historical facts are knitted into a tale that, if woven, could be displayed as a tapestry.
And as stated earlier, the book answers a bay-boy’s — or an aged curmudgeon’s — lifelong question.
In the previous century, when I was a wee Protestant bay-boy, Mammy chastised me Sunday after Sunday for running at play. I’ve always questioned why running was forbidden on Sundays. I assumed it was for fear I’d fall and rip the knees out of my Sunday pants.
Nah. Not the reason.
According to The Hanged Woman’s Daughter, Mammy’s real fear was that I’d fall down and break a Commandment.
Thank you for reading.
January 4, 2025
I’m thinking this book just wasn’t for me. I found it difficult to get through. Some chapters just bounced around too much from different characters from one paragraph to the next. It was sad what Bridget and her family went through however, I found certain parts of the story to be drawn out too much and other parts were rushed.
February 24, 2024
I enjoyed this book. It was fast paced with short chapters and I couldn’t wait to get to the next one. I felt for the characters and the writing was smooth. I had read this one over a year since the first one, but there was enough “flashbacks” that it was like I read it a lot more recent.
April 25, 2021
I reviewed this in the April edition of the Northeast Avalon Times; will post that review here, likely in June.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews