Out of Human Sight: A Historical Mystery

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The bloody, battered, and unrecognisable bodies of an innkeeper and his son are found in their remote village. As gore-seekers travel from across the country to witness the sight, mill-worker Millie Bradbury, her family, and her discovery have become notorious, and the focus of unwanted national attention. I’m not so much fascinated by who committed the murder, though the fact that it remains unsolved is certainly intriguing,” Sophie, 37, said. The team currently work remotely from Manchester, Yorkshire, and Cumbria, and despite weekly Zoom meetings, we’re still enjoying the experience of working for an indie publisher without the crushing realities of a long commute. A graduate of the University of Manchester and the Manchester Writing School, Manchester Metropolitan University, Sophie Parkes is currently studying for a PhD in creative writing and folklore at Sheffield Hallam University, for which she won a Vice Chancellor’s Scholarship. I’m writing a novel for my PhD, but it’s very different to Out of Human Sight: it’s contemporary, for a start, and it’s told through four narrative voices.

Although it starts with a crime, this is a piece of historical fiction about the fortitude of a woman battling with the aftermath of finding her grandfather and uncle murdered and its effect on her life. The characterisation of Millie is magnificent, she is strong, determined and resourceful but we also see other facets in she is naïve, inexperienced and anxious. A truly rounded creation and a character whose journey you want to follow.Parkes-Nield, S. (2020). Cheese-rolling, Pace-egging, Soul-caking: Can Calendar Customs Engender Stewardship of our Natural Environment? Presented at: Earth(ly) Matters, Online An attractive if somewhat generic cover, though it’s not the easiest of stories to come up with a targeted one. Still pleasing enough on the eye and hints at historical fiction.

Parkes-Nield, S. (2023). “Unite and Unite, and Let Us All Unite”. In Folklore, People, and Places. (pp. 55-66). Routledge: http://doi.org/10.4324/9781003374138-5 Books She and her family are mill workers, like almost everyone else in Greenfield and the rest of Saddleworth, and Sophie Parkes gives us an uncompromising picture of the working and domestic lives of the labourers in that period, and of the systematic cultural oppression of women. The apparent saving grace for Millie is that she’s expected to marry the popular Johnny Barkwell, to the envy of most other young women in the area, and indeed she does. But the marriage doesn’t promise to be happy, partly because Johnny is drinking heavily and seems unable to stop, but mostly because he decides that he and Millie are going to emigrate to Canada – and since she’s his wife she has no choice in the matter, reluctant though she is. We’re given a chilling description of travel in steerage on a nineteenth century sailing ship, and then we’re given an even more dispiriting account of the shanty town in Quebec where the couple have to find a home, and work. Wonderfully atmospheric and written with both strong and delicate writing, Out of Human Sightis a dark and terrific historical read.

Parkes-Nield, S. (2021). Connected through Custom: Well Dressing in Jon McGregor’s Novel, Reservoir 13. http://doi.org/10.1080/0015587x.2020.1844953