‘Moving and masterful . . . transports you to 18th-century Scotland and says as much about modern life as it does about those harrowing times’ – Janice Hallett, bestselling author of The Appeal Inspired by an infamous real-life case, The Mourning Necklace is the unforgettable original feminist historical novel from the Women’s Prize-longlisted author of The Maiden, Kate Foster. They said I would swing for the crime and I did . . . I wear the rope-mark like a mourning necklace. 1724. In a tavern just outside Edinburgh, the family of Maggie Dickson – hanged for the murder of her newborn child – drown their sorrows, mourning her death yet relieved she is gone. Shame haunts them; passers-by avert their eyes from her cheap coffin on its rickety cart. But as her family pray her soul rests in peace, a figure appears at the door. It is Maggie. She is alive. Bruised and dazed, Maggie has little time for her family’s questions. All that matters to her is answering one: will they hang her twice?