The author’s not a historian, but she’s clearly done a lot of research into this particular subject. It’s the author’s first published novel, and that does show: it’s lacking a bit in style and polish, and some of the language is anachronistic … but very few people produce Gone With The Wind at the first attempt, and it’s a pretty creditable first effort.

This book, whilst it features real people, is fictitious, but set against the background of the Lancashire Witch Trials of 1612, and ties the story of Alice Gray (or Grey), the only one of the accused to be acquitted, to that of Fleetwood Shuttleworth, the then mistress of Gawthorpe Hall near Burnley. I understand the desire to bring tourists into the Pendle area, but I could scream every time I hear the X43 bus route, linking Manchester to Colne and passing within a few hundred yards of my house, called “The Witch Way”, and see silly pictures of pointy hats and broomsticks on the sides of the vehicles. It makes a refreshing change to read a book which treats the Pendle Witch Trials as what they were, the state-sponsored persecution of vulnerable people, resulting in the judicial killings of eight women and two men, rather than as some sort of Gothic romance or Disneyfied fairytale. The Chronicles of Hi… on 28 Days by David Safier The Chronicles of Hi… on What If It’s Us? by Adam… The Chronicles of Hi… on Karitas Untitled by Kristin Ma…

The Chronicles of Hi… on Across a Bridge of Dreams by L… What If It’s Us? by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli.

Karitas Untitled by Kristin Marja Baldursdottir.

Across a Bridge of Dreams by Lesley Downer.

The Familiars by Stacey Halls