There has been an abundance of sapphic historical fiction in the last year, especially those that centre an isolated nunnery/convent with something untoward happening. The Starving Saints and The Unworthy are likely to be the most well-known, but there is another that was published in summer 2025 set in the medieval British countryside with an eerie folk horror simmering under the surface.
Mere follows Hilda, the healer of an isolated Abbey in Norfolk, as she and her fellow sisters are thrown into a whole new world with the arrival of a mysterious woman named Wulfrun as well as the news that a boy is missing out in the mere, a boggy marshland surrounded by rumour and unease. With Wulfrun’s arrive comes a whole host of issues for the convent, and Hilda is stuck between the Abbess’ distrust for Wulfrun, her own allure to the strange new lady, and her need to protect the Abbey and its people from whatever is going wrong out in the mere.
I found the book to feel incredibly suffocating – the slow build-up of the unsettling atmosphere in this isolated community running on limited supplies and cut off from the outside world leaves you wondering just how long this siege will last, or whether the convent will even survive it. You’re never quite sure whether the cause of all the disaster impacting the nuns is magical or whether it’s just luck of the draw, which adds to the feeling that it will never end. It reminded me a little of another slow sapphic horror set in the British wilderness that I enjoyed: Meet Me at the Surface by Jodie Matthews. Both really depict how isolated it can be in small local communities and how distrust in one another can quickly turn situations sour.
The romance in Mere is a slow burn, and a nice relief from some of the darker elements of the book – death, disease and despair persist, but so does sapphic love! As does friendship: there are several relationships Hilda has with other characters within the novel, both in a motherly and sisterly fashion, that helped build up the picture of community between the sisters of the convent as things began to fall apart. It’s something I really appreciate about these sorts of stories; I love the trope of woman falling in love in these small communities, often caught between their passion for one another and their duty, but I also love the comradery that it also brings between women from all walks of life.
Mere is a slow read, one that has a fairly ambiguous ending, but I would definitely recommend if you haven’t quite gotten enough of your queer medieval nunnery fiction. Here’s to hoping this trend doesn’t die out quite yet!
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