Over the following months, Anna and the rector's wife Elinor attempt to learn the uses of the contents of the Gowdies' physick garden, and take up the roles of village midwives.

Except the Bradfords, the local landed gentry, the whole village agrees. Michael Mompellion proposes that the villagers quarantine themselves to avoid spreading the 'plague-seeds' beyond the village. Both Mem and Anys are murdered by villagers. The spate of deaths is blamed on a widow, Mem Gowdie and her niece, Anys Gowdie, the village's herbalists and midwives, who are accused of being witches. Viccars' employer), her two young sons, and a few other villagers fall ill with the plague and die. Over the next few weeks, Anna's neighbor (Mr. Viccars' clients come to claim their work and disregard the warning. He begs her to burn all he brought with him to stop the spread of disease Viccars develops a high fever, and starts exhibiting symptoms of the bubonic plague. Shortly after the arrival of a box of fabrics from London, Mr. The novel opens in the spring of 1665 when a young widow Anna Frith, takes on a tailor, George Remington Viccars as a boarder. The plague that hit Eyam and other parts of the UK in 1665-1666 was one of many recurrences that had taken place since the Black Death of the 14th century. It is based on the history of the small Derbyshire village of Eyam that, when beset by the plague in 1666, quarantines itself in order to prevent the disease from spreading further.

The novel is written in the point of view of a housemaid named Anna Frith, on what she lives through when the plague hits her village. It was chosen as both a New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book. Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague is a 2001 international bestselling historical fiction novel by Geraldine Brooks.

Year of wonders author