Now, as another celebrated solver of mysteries once said, “The game’s afoot!” We are in relatively modern times, March 2020, and the Covid Curse has begun to cast its awful spell. The senior Anglican clergy, including the Bishop of Hereford, are relentlessly determined to be woker than woke, and have decided that exorcism – or, to use the other term, deliverance – is the stuff or the middle ages, and clergy are being advised to refer any strange events to the NHS mental health teams. This, of course, puts Merrily Watkins’ ‘night job’ under threat. She and her mentor Huw Owen know that some people experience events which cannot simply be the result of their poor mental health. Although Merrily is in a position that requires a strong foundation of Christian faith, she is often easily shaken and scared of all the things that her occupation requires her to deal with- from the supernatural elements to the resistance she receives from the old patriarchal families, who are not too happy about having a female clerical member. This series follows country vicar Merrily Watkins, who is one of the few women priests working as an exorcist in the UK. She is being mentored in the art of exorcism by clergyman Huw Owen, despite warnings from Canon Dobbs. When a grisly murder takes place in her local area, the police come calling for her assistance. [2] Cast [ edit ] A confrontation with Roddy, who is there at night apparently removing the tank himself, soon escalates into a murder enquiry. And the book starts to take a different turn, first with Roddy's seeming madness and 'confession' of being a mass murderer, and then with the effect of electrical energy on human health, for Roddy's village is surrounded by electricity pilons and his home is right next to one. Finally, the dominant theme of the second part of the book takes over where the real life serial killers, Fred (now deceased) and Rosemary West, become an integral part of the story. as I let the novel settle over a few days after reading it, I noticed that this aspect of it left me feeling abit 'unclean'... and like I'd kinda inadvertently wandered into a room where someone was screening some really dodgy porn 😕😬🤢

The Merrily Watkins series follows the protagonist as she tries to acclimate to life in a village that isn’t quite what it seems. So far, so good. Unfortunately, her start in the village is not entirely promising. When visiting a local event incognito, meant to encourage the fertilisation of the apple trees in the winter, Merrily sees a local man die, though whether deliberate or suicide is unclear.

The demise of the character who might have caused it all is just silly, covid doesn't work like that. Watkins’ gender elicits many a problem. There are those in the community who are not convinced that a female vicar is the right way to go. Their sensibilities are further challenged when Watkins is assigned the role of exorcist. Yes, yes, – the poor lad was tired, a bit hormonal and having bad dreams. But wait. As Vaynor is doing his job, and interviewing those who knew Portis, he meets his daughter in law, and she reminds him horribly of the woman he ‘met’ on that fateful afternoon in King Arthur’s Cave.

Each of the mysteries at the heart of the individual novels has a supernatural aspect, one that Watkins must investigate to determine its validity. Merrily Watkins Books into Movies/TV At a whim and because it came up in a group discussion, I decided this might make for good reading this time of year. Not that this book is overpowered by what I call the woo-woo factor, but there are plenty of eerie, mystical moments that helped me decide to add it to the Halloween book list. The messy parts are the way the characters act. They do things that their characters wouldn't do so as to help move the story along. The character of Lucy is a catalyst for much of this bizarre behavior but she isn't compelling enough to make me believe that people would act against their own inclinations so the story could come out right. What more do you want? I ask you. Oh, and terrific audio performance. Seriously, this series is a winner. It doesn't fit into any mold other than great. Please resist the urge to pigeonhole it into paranormal, mystery, etc., because really I could put this on my fantasy shelf. I could practically put it on a literary shelf. He is world building in this book. If you read it expecting a straight whodunit, I promise you will be disappointed. It's so much more than that. I think the ending of “The Fever of the World” is very good, but subtle. So subtle that I missed it the first-time round. I thought, as perhaps do other readers, “is that all?”You can also tell that the author has done extensive research on the procedure of Deliverance (exorcism), as we see that every single possibility, including psychiatric, is eliminated, before exorcism is pursued as an option to solve the problem. He states that most of the elements in his book are based on facts and studies rather than fiction. We then get to see more about Jane when her friend Colette mysteriously disappears after claiming to see visions in an ancient apple orchid. in some ways, it's abit like the author kinda sneaks alot of things in 'under the radar'/through comments characters make... or maybe he's not aware of his own biases?!? 🙃 He’s not wrong, either. Very soon, a bearded dead man turns up in the woods, nailed to a tree, arms outstretched, wearing a crown of barbed wire (nice modern twist, that). There are animal skulls about the place, a sure sign that there’s something fishy going on. It turns out that the dead man was some kind of satanist, judging by what turns up in his cellar. The police appeal to Merrily, and her knowledge of both the Bible and the supernatural, for help.

Lol Robinson, Huw Owen and DI Franny Bliss all have sufficient roles in this novel to satisfy their fans, as does Gomer Parry, who experiences some of the tragedy too close to home for him to be forgiving.

Merrily Watkins Books into Movies/TV

Now… could this have been because they’d recognised its obvious merits… or because the more expendable Midwinter would now go up against Episode 3 of what would be the year’s most successful (10 million viewers) BBC drama, Doctor Foster, saving the costly Unforgotten from the embarrassing possibility of, er, being rapidly forgotten? There doesn't seem to be an upcoming book in The Merrily Watkins Series. The newest book is The Fever of the World and was released on January, 3rd 2019.