Daughters of the Witching Hill
A Novel
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
From the author of The Dark Lady, a novel of England’s trial of the Pendle witches of 1612 and a family struggling to survive the hysteria.
Bess Southerns, an impoverished widow living in Pendle Forest, is haunted by visions and gains a reputation as a cunning woman. Drawing on the Catholic folk magic of her youth, Bess heals the sick and foretells the future. As she ages, she instructs her granddaughter, Alizon, in her craft, as well as her best friend, who ultimately turns to dark magic. When a peddler suffers a stroke after exchanging harsh words with Alizon, a local magistrate, eager to make his name as a witch finder, plays neighbors and family members against one another until suspicion and paranoia reach frenzied heights.
This e-book includes a sample chapter of Illuminations.
“Daughters of the Witching Hill offers a fresh approach with witches who believe in their own power and yet, in many ways, are still innocent. Sharratt’s readers—like the magistrate who took the women’s confessions—are likely to be spellbound by their stories.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Full of the reality of the day, this story is stark and real, but Sharratt’s descriptions of landscape and the daily life of the poor at the time are rich enough to feed the senses. The author weaves this vast canvas of changing culture into the personal stories of these women, and in the process transports us to a distant land, a distant time—and deep into the story of people we sympathize with and care about.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The 1612 Lancashire, England, witch trials that resulted in nine executions inspires Sharratt's gorgeously imagined novel that wonders if some of the accusations of witchcraft might be true. Sharratt (The Vanishing Point) focuses on the Southerns family of Pendle Forest. Widowed mother Bess Southerns tries to save her family from bleakest poverty by healing the sick, telling fortunes, and blessing those facing misfortune, conjuring "charmes" that combine forbidden Catholic ritual, medicinal herbs, and guidance provided by her spirit-friend, Tibb. Though Bess compassionately uses her powers, her granddaughter, Alizon, unwittingly endangers her family while under the interrogation of a conniving local magistrate. Sharratt crafts her complex yet credible account by seamlessly blending historical fact, modern psychology, and vivid evocations of the daily life of the poor whose only hope of empowerment lay in the black arts. Set in forests and towers, farms and villages, deep in a dungeon and on the gallows, this novel grows darker as it approaches its inevitable conclusion, but proves uplifting in its portrayal of women who persevere, and mothers and daughters who forgive.
