Book Review: The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi

The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi
Published by Pan Macmillan
Release Date: 23 July 2020
ISBN: 978-1529019063

* Thank you to Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for sending an ARC in return for an honest review.

An old adage says there are really only two stories: a man goes on a voyage, and a stranger arrives in town. This is the third: a woman breaks the rules . . .

Can you uncover the truth when you’re forbidden from speaking it?

A Sin Eater’s duty is a necessary evil: she hears the confessions of the dying, eats their sins as a funeral rite. Stained by these sins, she is shunned and silenced, doomed to live in exile at the edge of town.

Recently orphaned May Owens is just fourteen, only concerned with where her next meal is coming from. When she’s arrested for stealing a loaf of bread, however, and subsequently sentenced to become a Sin Eater, finding food is suddenly the last of her worries.

It’s a devastating sentence, but May’s new invisibility opens new doors. And when first one then two of the Queen’s courtiers suddenly grow ill, May hears their deathbed confessions – and begins to investigate a terrible rumour that is only whispered of amid palace corridors.

Set in a thinly disguised sixteenth-century England, The Sin Eater is a wonderfully rich story of treason and treachery; of women, of power, and the strange freedom that comes from being an outcast – because, as May learns, being a nobody sometimes counts for everything . . .

What a tremendous breath of fresh book air to read!

Newly orphaned May Owens is caught stealing a loaf of bread and her punishment is to become a Sin Eater.
Sin Eaters really did exist, mostly around the Welsh Borders and up until the middle of the 19th Century.
A Sin Eater was someone who would eat a ritual meal in order to spiritually take on the sins of the deceased person.
Different foods were allocated to different sins. For example, Mustard Seeds for lying, Black Pudding for revenge and Gristle for wrath.

The book is set during an alternative Elizabethan Times and Queen Bethany is reigning (rather than Queen Elizabeth) but the similarities are very clear. Fans of that period will have fun spotting the parallel characters from that time. 

As a Sin Eater, Meg cannot speak or be spoken to unless it's during her duties as a Sin Eater. For someone who was a 'Gabby Goose', this loneliness is heart-breaking. She silently 'talks' to the road, the walls and other inanimate objects to sort through the questions that she previously would have asked aloud.

Marked by a metal collar and the letter 'S' branded on her tongue and shunned and ignored by most, Meg still manages to find a degree of companionship with a disparate group of people - lepers, unbelievers, travelling actors, even one Highborn gentleman.
It is these outsiders who she turns to for help and comfort.
As Meg realises the strange power that comes with her non-status, there are some great moments in the book where she has fun as a living 'curse' realising that people will not and cannot stop her from doing certain things. She claims the town fountain as her own by drinking from it and bathing from it, knowing full well that no one else will dare touch the water after she has been near it. She takes a barrel of ale and some new shoes because the vendors cannot approach her to apprehend her. And she pretty much has free reign to wander where she likes (including the castle) because of she is unseen and unheard.
I was rooting for May as she took back a degree of power and used whatever she had at her disposal to give her some control of her circumstances.

The crime/mystery element of this story was just the icing on the cake. I would have happily read a whole book about May's life as a Sin Eater and her residence in the worst part of town ('Dungsbrook'). But May's solo investigation into why several of the Queen's ladies had Deer Hearts on their coffins when the sin for this foodstuff was omitted during their Recitations, was well-fleshed out and gave the book a really satisfying ending.

This book is compelling and enthralling. Full of rich and descriptive prose and often very humorous.
Much is made of the superstitions and folklore of the time, which I found fascinating. I also really enjoyed the dark Fairy Tale elements from the story.

The Sin Eater is one of those fully immersive books where you're totally captivated whilst reading and can't stop thinking about it after you've finished.
One of my favourite reads of the year.