Latest Books From The Library...

Piper Kincaid is 30 years old and has already endured three years of treatment for breast cancer. As she considers life with metastatic breast disease, she also returns to the year she was 14, when her mother left and she came to understand how lives get broken. In Greenwood's third novel (after Breathing Water and Nearer Than the Sky), chapters alternate between Piper's story today and 16 years earlier. Her mother collected broken glass and created beautiful pieces of art, but she couldn't live with her husband's fears of losing her. She managed to get away, leaving Piper and her older brother, Quinn, with their father, who eventually found a new girlfriend and ostensibly moved out. How Piper grew up that year without either parent, how she and her best friend, Becca, discovered performing, and how she became aware of the neediness and cruelty of others intersects with Piper's cancer ordeal.

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.

Sharratt interweaves well-researched historical details of the 1612 Pendle witch-hunt with a beautifully imagined story of strong women, family, and betrayal. Daughters of the Witching Hill is a powerful novel of intrigue and revelation.