I’m honoured to be celebrating Natasha’s gorgeous middle grade debut The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost Fair which is released in the UK on the 27th October, my only regret, is that I didn’t have enough time, nor energy to create a bookbounding costume in time for my date on the Write Reads Tour, as I am currently editing this review from my bed, riddled with flu. However, let’s see how I feel in a week!
To start, a caveat, I’m not going to lie. This book starts with the rather traumatic on page death of a child who suffocates as a result of an asthma attack. So if this is a topic that is too personal and raw for you or a child reader you are responsible for, this is perhaps not the book for now.
BUT! If grief and survivor guilt is something that could and is ready to be addressed in your life, family or children whom you care and provide reading for, this book holds a lot of healing potential.
Outside of this, The Miraculous Sweetmakers is a gloriously beautiful and deep foray into the world of Fae under the guise of a dark night of the soul, Thomasina must confront the darkness inside caused by the death of her brother despite the icy spectacular and the promise of return and hope to live to see the dawn.
And is utterly brilliant.
Content notes:
Be aware this is a historical novel set in London during the winter of 1683-4 and posits itself within an accurate socio-political landscape including classism, ableism and prejudice- if you cannot handle historically accurate attitudes to disability, women and mental illness and associated words within the gently safe frame of MG, then look elsewhere. Natasha wants us to remember why we want change, not pretending everything was fine.
On page death of a child, asthma attacks, child neglect, survivor guilt, chronic depression including catatonic states, grief, animal abuse, disappearance of parent, forced removal of parent.
One midwinter night Thomasina was so desperate to get home she loses her temper and pushes her twin brother to the limit, and a fatal asthma attack takes him away forever.
Four years later her family is in tatters, her mother doesn’t speak and hasn’t left her bed, her father can’t even bear to look at her, barely grunting commands at her to keep their sweetmakers shop afloat, and she is torn to shreds with guilt, even to the point she is scared that she is not worth the chance when apothecary apprentice Anne Clark bustles into her life offering companionship and opportunity.
But that winter, the Thames completely freezes over and amidst the local shopkeepers creating an impromptu Frost Fair trading their wares on the ice with lucrative results, a mysterious magical man makes her an offer; accompany him for four nights at the Other Frost Fair hosted by the dangerously glorious Father Winter, one for every year apart from her brother, and her memories of him offered up to bring him back from the dead.
But can you ever trust such an offer? And what is truly behind Father Winter and his Other Frost Fair?
The Miraculous Sweetmakers is a really deep and brilliantly researched historical drama with fantasy. Personally, I don’t quite consider it a historically inspired fantasy like say the truly wonderful The Elemental Detectives which is richly historical but essentially a truly fantastical romp through a secret alternative London .
The Miraculous Sweetmakers is different because despite the fantastical features, the body and events of the story is rooted fully in a truly historical setting of the real Thames Frost Fair of 1683-4, paying absolute attention to minuscule detail of the economic and social make up of the Southwark hamlets with thoughtful stealthy weaving of historical facts and information into the narrative, and weaving in a nighttime fantasy that overlays this, and although it omits perhaps the worst of Restoration working class reality for its middle grade audience, it is both grim enough to remind of where our ancestors have risen from, whilst sparkling enough to please the modern reader.
For me this is as nerdily satisfying from my background in history as it was to read Annaliese Gray’s Circus Maximus books, also the beautiful nods to my understanding of the history of medicine and herbalism. And although Late Restoration England is not my specialist subject, social history and particularly the experience of working class and women in history is a beloved factor of mine.
The Miraculous Sweetmakers will not only stay on my special shelf not simply for its take on Fae, but for its respect and positing of a particular interest of mine, mental health (with particular focus on women’s experience) in history.
Popular historical fiction and movies have made many aware of the dark side of the historical medical attitudes to women’s mental health with the umbrella misogynistic diagnosis of hysteria leading to the disfigurement and abuse of women’s bodies and minds from the sexual and physical abuse of the late Victorian period evolving further into the 20th century with lobotomies, Electroconvulsive therapy and forced sterilisations.
And whilst people will have heard of the term Bedlam, fewer know it refers to St Mary Of Bethlem (sic) Hospital, a real medieval hospital that turned from a general refuge into caring for ‘the mad’ rebuilt to an opulent scale in 1876 where people with what we now know to be various disabilities, genetic syndromes, neurodivergence, developmental disorders and mental health issues were displayed in the less pretty areas much like animals in a zoo for the paying crowds, attracting similar visitor numbers to Westminster Abbey or the lions in the Tower of London until it was tore down in 1815.
Whilst thankfully we only get a brief hint of the real Bedlam in The Miraculous Sweetmakers, the threat to especially women with mental health issues is apparent and tangible throughout from the surviving hate from the Jacobean Witch Craze when Thomasina rescues a black cat from being killed, to the public annoyance at her catatonic mother’s grief fuelled screaming nightmares.
The threat that they should be ‘taken away’ and ‘dealt with’ underlines a common theme to the disabled, mentally unwell and neurodivergent throughout history- ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and equally shows us how far we have come medically and officially, and yet without spoilers, how far we still have to go in social and interpersonal attitudes to mental health and gender roles despite the deeply human experiences of grief, regret and pain that unites us across time and space.
And then intertwined there is this esoteric Fae world of ghostly magical beings frozen in time of these Other Frost Fairs with sparkling ice animal guardians and frosty patrons shimmering in silver and blue amongst potion and charm sellers, Shakespearean plays and at its heart the striking Father Winter.
Drawing upon a rich literary history and mythology of goblin markets, Faery festivities, the human attunement to the seductive darkness of the knife edge between life and death with winter and ice in such personifications as Jack Frost, and the dark side of faery glamourie, Natasha has weaved these into a mirror world Frost Fair from the historical record. For me this is a huge source of joy, and whilst part of me wishes we could have leaned in a little more to the spectacular of the Frost Fairs, I more so appreciate the space left to imagine and project our own Frost Fair stalls, entertainments and menagerie of attendants into the gaps .
Thomasina’s chaperone to these nights, Inigo, reminds me of The Gentleman from Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, particularly the portrayal by Marc Warren in the television adaptation of this frosty, out of time but particularly dapper gentleman with a shard of ice in his twinkling eyes. Part of me is rather eager to create a gender-bend cosplay of Inigo for Littlefae.
Finally the Sweetmakers factor of the novel is another source of great joy.
This novel is set after the cane sugar trade has been established between the colonies and Britain, which brought a renaissance to sweet treats, although and beautifully hinted at throughout, the modern concept of cake has not been discovered yet as what we understand to be cake only came about in the 19th century.
Instead the sweet treats such as gingerbread and apple cake would not be as recognisable to the modern palate being enriched breads more like brioche and panettone filled with egg yolks, butter and sugar and risen with yeast rather than the refined flour and baking powder concoctions we know and love today. This and the reference to marchpane sculpting, with marzipan roses and such gives us insight into the history of food, of confectionary and the joy of sweets throughout history, and maybe young readers will pause to consider how amazing the choice and flavour we have available today thanks to experiments by sweet makers in the past?!
Furthermore I adored the inventive creations between Anne and Thomasina as they seek to combine their apothecary and sweetmaking respective skills to make palatable medicines and supplements rather than the nasty tasting herbal creations on offer at the time.
My favourite section was the making of honey and ginger fruit gums, which is more similar to a posh fruit pastille or if flattened a ‘leather’ like the fruit roll ups in lunchboxes. But modern readers may wonder why not just make a lozenge like we use today such as a Hall’s soother or Fishermans friend?
Well, as hinted in the use of honey rather than expensive sugar, and the fact this was being done in a domestic 17th century kitchen, the heat control required for the process for creating boiled sweets was still 140 years away, so this technique draws on the new development in the 1650s when French confectioners had created ‘pâte de fruits’ by blending pulpy fruit juice with sugar syrup and reducing the liquid content as the natural pectins in the fruit create a ‘jelly’ like substance much like the process for making jam but firmer. We see the girls working out this process themselves by experimenting when realising honey just crystallises unless you find a new method.
These unassuming treats that in the original state we probably associate with a posh expensive box given to your nan or a great aunt at Christmas more than the grab bag or foil wrapped stack of rowntrees fruit pastilles we may enjoy seem unassuming, but they were a pivotal moment in food history and so very popular as a sweet and more delectable alternative to candied fruit, it explains the popularity of the cold remedy that the girls sell at the Frost Fair even amongst those who were not suffering.
Its these little daubs and folds of real history amongst the narrative that are an absolute joy such as the syrup apples which reflect the invention of the lollipop in the 1500s which at its invention was literally a stick stirred in a thick syrup laced with sweet herbs and left to dry out . This is a great source of joy to me as it leans into the ‘old herbalist ways’ such as pears for indigestion, the use of tonics whilst also recognising the reality that the attempts to make medicine palatable meant they often became treats- much like the history of tonic water which is not contemporary to this but illustrates the same process!
The Miraculous Sweetmakers is an incredible adventure of the heart and soul with a huge dose of empathy to open your eyes and heart to the universal experience of sadness, to honour loss and pain and to rise from the ashes of ourselves to begin anew.
Please check out the other stops on this tour.
The Miraculous Sweetmakers – Natasha Hastings, illustrated by Alex T Smith is published by Harper Collins Childrens
many thanks to the Write Reads tours and Harper Collins for my proof copy. 💜
Lily and the Fae 
I hadn’t heard of this one before. This looks fabulous!
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Such an amazing review!!
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