What would you do if you found yourself in the Scotland of 1630 without even a change of underclothes or a toothbrush?  That is where two mature students – family woman Al and footloose Jane – find themselves after an encounter with some magic mushrooms and a small standing stone.  They get adopted by the local wise woman and fall for local lads, create a party plan cottage industry selling traditional cures and try to make their own contraceptives.  Despite the grime and lack of funds it has its merits but these two liberated 1999 females have ignored their history lessons and soon it all begins to go horribly wrong… 

Time travel is an interesting and often overlooked aspect of the historical novel.  It allows the author to really explore the vast gulf between our times and those of other ages.  I wondered if anybody would be quite as blind and go quite so over-the-top as the pair in this tale and if they did surely they would have been denounced as witches even earlier on but nevertheless it is true that so much we regard as science was then witchcraft and nothing more.  Campbell gets the overall feel of the period almost right and there are some good descriptions but something was lacking – people appeared to understand more of the women’s speech than I would have thought and despite going through the motions of religion I didn’t sense that people were quite such firm believers as they would have been.  After the sprightly beginning though as things begin to turn sour the 17th century comes vividly to life and taken as a whole this is an admirably-conceived novel with a sharply modern take on the saying that gives the book its title.  It will be interesting to see what Frances Campbell comes up with next.