The Book of Witching

Author/Guide: C J Cooke

Why a Booktrail?

1594, 2024: Four hundred years separate them. One book binds them

ISBN: 978-0008656218
Genre: Fiction, Folklore

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What you need to know before your trail

Glasgow 2024: Clem waits by her daughter’s hospital bed. Erin was found on an idyllic beach in Fynhallow Bay, Orkney with catastrophic burns and only one memory: her name is Nyx.

But how did she get these burns? And how did her boyfriend end up burned alive?

Orkney 1594: accused of witchcraft, Alison Balfour awaits trial. The punishment? To be burned alive.

Separated by four hundred years but bound by the Book of Witching, two women stand imperilled. Can they unlock a centuries-old mystery? And will Fynhallow Bay give up its secrets before someone else dies?

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Orkney

The note in the novel states the real life inspiration for this story:

In 1594, a woman was accused of assisting a ,an to kill his brother. The man was acquitted. The woman was executed at Gallow Ha’ in Kirkwall, Orkney. Her name was Alison Balfour. She was the first of over seventy women to be executed in Orkney on charges of witchcraft. The more women, the more witches.