Year of Wonders is a powerful and lyrical work. The story, as narrated by a young servant-woman called Anna Frith, tells, in shocking detail, how the Great Plague of 1665 arrived in a tiny village in the Derbyshire Peak district....and how the population re-acted to the horrors brought by that pestilence.

It must be said that the language used is beautiful, and there can be no doubt that Ms Brookes has trawled through mountains of seventeenth century texts to be able to compose a narrative that reads as though it may have been written by a low-born person of that era.

But there is nothing tiresome in this. Rather there is a natural poetry such as may have pervaded an age when religious influences were so strong, perhaps flavoured by the style of the King James bible. There is a richness of vocabulary that puts me to shame, and a knowledge of agricultural and lead mining practices that indicate diligent scholarship.

(In fact a little glossary of some of the very obscure terms would have been welcome.)

Try this little taster: "As I polished the Mompellions' damascene chest, I would study its delicate inlays and wonder about the faraway craftsman who had fashioned it, trying to imagine the manner of his life under a hot sun and a strange God."

But most of all, this is an emotional story. Anna, the protagonist, has been whipped and beaten as a child, and marries Sam, a simple miner, to escape her cruel and drunken father. She is to know little happiness, this bright child..... at 15 or 16 a bride, at 17 a mother, at 18 a widow....and this is just the start.

The village folk, Anna's neighbours and friends, are brought to life with a clarity and sympathy that is startling. The hardest thing to come to terms with is that the story is broadly true.... such a village did exist, (and still does). As a community, led by their minister, the surviving villagers swear an oath to quarantine themselves, and so all commerce with the outside world is halted. The Earl of Chatsworth agrees to supply the necessary victuals, deposited at the Boundary Stone, and no one may enter or leave till the plague has run its course.

The central figures, aside from Anna, are the rector, Michael Mompellion, and his wife, Elinor. Elinor and Anna become close friends, and as the crisis deepens, the two women tend the sick with no regard for their own safety.... in the case of Anna she has nothing left to lose. Soon the barriers between a servant and her mistress are eroded by the harrowing experiences brought by the plague, the terrible loss, the fear, and also the courage and sacrifice.

Anna, it is true, is a bit of a Wonder-Woman.... during the course of the year she miraculously teaches herself to practice herbal medicine, deliver babies, mine lead ore, and a host of other fanciful things. But I forgive her all that. Basically, she is such a warm and likeable girl that I can excuse her for being almost too perfect.

There are some surprises too, near the end. I would not dream of spoiling them for you.

But I do exhort you to read it yourself..... with this proviso. I would suggest that anyone who has recently had a death in the family, especially if the deceased was a child, may find this account too up-setting.