Lancashire, 1612: Fourteen-year-old Grace Sowerbutts is at a dangerous crossroads, caught between the righteous might of the local Pendle Protestants, the fury of their Catholic neighbours, and the insidious threat of witchcraft. Divided by Witchcraft is the second in a new series of historical fiction short stories examining the frenzy of witch hunting that swept the north of England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries - including the most famous, that of the Pendle Witches in 1612.

Witches are dangerous. They can kill you with a look, or a word. They can send their friend the Devil after you in the shape of a dog or a cat. They can make a clay picture of you, then break it.... and a few weeks later, you are dead. Today, of course, most people don’t believe in witches. But in 1612, everybody was afraid of them. Young Jennet Device in Lancashire knew a lot about them because she lived with the Witches of Pendle. They were her family.

Emma Moorcroft is still grieving after a late miscarriage and moves to her dream house at Thruscross Reservoir with her husband, Dave. Both Emma and Dave hope that moving into their new home signifies a fresh start, but life is not that simple. Emma has nightmares about the reservoir and the drowned village that lies beneath the water, and is further disturbed by the sound of church bells - from a church that no longer exists.

My name is Elizabeth Anne Hawksmith, and my age is 384 years. Each new settlement asks for a new journal, and so this Book of Shadows begins… In the spring of 1628, the Witchfinder of Wessex finds himself a true Witch. As Bess Hawksmith watches her mother swing from the Hanging Tree she knows that only one man can save her from the same fate at the hands of the panicked mob: the Warlock Gideon Masters, and his Book of Shadows.

In his late 30s, Edward Parnell found himself trapped in the recurring nightmare of a family tragedy. For comfort, he turned to his bookshelves, back to the ghost stories that obsessed him as a boy, and to the writers through the ages who have attempted to confront what comes after death. In Ghostland, Parnell goes in search of the ‘sequestered places’ of the British Isles, our lonely moors, our moss-covered cemeteries, our stark shores and our folkloric woodlands.

Fleetwood Shuttleworth is 17 years old, married and pregnant for the fourth time. But as the mistress at Gawthorpe Hall, she still has no living child, and her husband, Richard, is anxious for an heir. When Fleetwood finds a letter she isn't supposed to read from the doctor who delivered her third stillbirth, she is dealt the crushing blow that she will not survive another pregnancy. Then she crosses paths by chance with Alice Gray, a young midwife. Alice promises to help her give birth to a healthy baby and to prove the physician wrong.

Welcome to Borley Rectory, the most haunted house in England. It's 1926. Sarah Grey has a new job - assistant to Harry Price, London's most infamous ghost hunter. Harry has devoted his life to exposing the truth behind England's 'false hauntings', and never has he left a case unsolved. They are invited to Borley Rectory - a house so haunted that objects fly through the air. But when night falls, they're forced to confront an uncomfortable possibility: the ghost of Borley Rectory may be real.

No matter how hard life is, humanity has the power to make it bearable -- or worse. Parliament of Rooks, the new historical paranormal novel in the award-winning Yorkshire Ghosts series, contrasts the beautiful, inspiring village of Haworth today with the slum -- or rookery -- it was during the industrial revolution: rife with disease, heartache, poverty, and child slavery in the mills. In 2017, life expectancy in the UK is 81.

Witches are something we generally associate with the distant past, with the medieval world, and the first story in this book is about a witch trial in 17th Century England. However, unlike the vast majority of such trials, most of the people accused of witchcraft in this case happily admitted to not just being witches, they also described how they had sold their souls to the devil. But, most of the stories here are about witches and witchcraft in the recent past.

Alinor, a descendant of wise women, crushed by poverty and superstition, waits in the graveyard under the full moon for a ghost who will declare her free from her abusive husband. Instead she meets James, a young man on the run, and shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marsh, not knowing that she is leading disaster into the heart of her life. Suspected of possessing dark secrets in superstitious times, Alinor’s ambition and determination mark her out from her neighbours. 

Jessamin Wade's husband is dead. She keeps him alive in her imagination, but she thinks she will hear him better if she goes somewhere quieter. Her destination is Glenelk in the Highlands of Scotland. Quickly, she meets the locals: her landlord, Fionnlagh Maccaillin; Maggie, who runs the village shop; and Stan, a frail, old man stricken with grief. Their lives entwining in mysterious ways, can they help each other to move on, or will they always belong to the ghosts that haunt them?

After her parents' divorce, five-year old Corinna Greer moves into Blakemort with her mother and brother. Set on the edge of the village of Whitesmith, the only thing attractive about it is the rent. A 'sensitive', Corinna is aware from the start that something is wrong with the house. Very wrong. Christmas is coming but at Blakemort that's not something to get excited about. A house that sits and broods, that calculates and considers, it's then that it lashes out - the attacks endured over five years becoming worse.

England, 1925. Louisa Drew lost her husband in the First World War and her six-year-old twin sons in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Newly remarried to a war-traumatised husband and seven months pregnant, Louisa is asked by her employer to travel to Clewer Hall in Sussex where she is to photograph the contents of the house for auction. She learns Clewer Hall was host to an infamous séance in 1896, and that the lady of the house has asked those who gathered back then to come together once more to re-create the evening. 

An eerie and compelling ghost story set on the dark wilds of the Yorkshire moors. For fans of The Witchfinder's Sister or The Silent Companions, this Gothic tale will weave its way into your imagination and chill you to the bone. Maybe you've heard tales about Scarcross Hall, the house on the old coffin path that winds from village to moor top. They say there's something up here, something evil. Mercy Booth isn't afraid. The moors and Scarcross are her home and lifeblood.

 Weave the Liminal explores what it means to truly be a witch in the modern world. Through the accessible lens of modern traditional witchcraft, Laura Tempest Zakroff helps you formulate a personalized witchcraft practice and deepen your work with spirits, ancestors, familiars, and the energies of the liminal realm.