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Doesn’t it look pretty? You can pick up Forgotten Deeds for Kindle or as a paperback on Amazon.

An unseasonable snowstorm plunges village witch Meryall Holt into a whirlwind of confusion. A chance encounter with an injured man, covered in blood and unable to remember his own name, changes the course of both of their lives. Can Meryall help solve the puzzle of who this man is and how he came to be wandering alone and confused in the snow before dark forces gather to take control of his life? The second book in the Cunning Folk Mystery series, set in 17th century Lancashire, Forgotten Deeds is an atmospheric, wintery tale full of magic and intrigue.

After hearing an interview about #bookstagram with author Jessica Pierce on Lindsay Buroker’s excellent podcast , I decided to have a look for myself and found myself falling down a deep rabbit hole of luscious photographs of books.

If you aren’t familiar with this corner of instagram, expect everything from minimalist lifestyle shots of books that look like they are perched on a torturously expensive hard wood floor next to an artfully made flat white, to gothic stacks of antique books, complete with ornate props and moody lighting.

My own shots tend towards the busy, rather than the minimalist (with the exception of that shot of a glass of violet gin below, which reminded me of a magic potion!) and I’ve had great fun picking flowers and herbs from my garden and chosing vintage and antique items from around my house to compliment some of my favourite books.

I had no idea what a vibrant, creative book community there is on instagram. I’m really enjoying discovering contributors and sharing my own efforts. I’ll be sharing photos from my #booktour, my own collection of books and of my research for my next book (which is due out in December).

Click my instagram button below to find me. Let me know if you have a book related instagram profile, I’ll be happy to check out your feed.

Prudence x

Now my book The Path to Horn Cottage is available as a physical item, which is very exciting, I wanted to take it on a little tour of some of the places that are featured in the book. The obvious place to start was at the rock houses that provided part of the inspiration for Meryall Holt’s cave home – Horn Cottage.

You can read more about my initial research trip to Kinver here, but today, I wanted to celebrate by showing you some of the lovely features and locations at the rock houses.

Here you can see the beautiful sandstone that allowed the caves to be worked into homes easily by the people who lived there. In the background you can see the name “Daz” carved into the stone for all eternity (or until it erodes and fades away). Thanks, Darren! It’s somewhat of a local tradition for people to carve their initials or names into the stone here, which, whilst unsightly at times, feels like an echo of the urge that man has had since the dawn of the ages to make his mark for posterity.

The Holy Austin Rock Houses belong to the National Trust, so of course they have a very nice tea room in one of the restored rock houses. Here you can see the traditional cream tea. We ate outside on the terrace, looking out over Kinver Edge.

Last time I visited the rock houses, it was winter and the fires were blazing inside, making it feel very cosy. This time, there was a modest fire, but the rooms were very cold, despite the warm day. The pantry, in particular, was deeply chilled, which must have been useful in the days before refrigeration. The range in the older rock house, although still much more modern than Meryall’s house, gave me the inspiration for her warm, comfortable fireplace in Horn Cottage. This living room is my favourite room at the rock houses.

The neatly carved and fitted windows and doors are a delight. Like last time I visited, even though it is now summer, it was still overcast and grey, so apologies for the low light in the photos.

After exploring the rock houses and enjoying our cream tea, we went for a long walk in the forest along Kinver Edge. The woods are deep, lush and green. We wandered off our path and ended up walking quite a long distance along the edge as we went in search of the hill fort…

I am pretty sure we passed this stump half a dozen times as we found our way back, in true fantasy novel fashion!

It was a wonderful day and a good way to celebrate the book. I hope you enjoyed the start of my book tour – I’ll be back with more visits to locations that inspired that book soon!

Prudence x

 

 

 

I came home from work to a package from Amazon.

Inside was the first copy of my first book.

I’m very happy to launch the paperback version. I hope you will like it too – you can find it here.  As a thank you, if you buy the paperback, you’ll get the kindle version for free, so that you can carry The Path to Horn Cottage around with you, if you like to read on the go like me!

Prudence x

I can’t remember the last time I was this excited… The Path to Horn Cottage is out today! Pick up your copy on Amazon!

And I hope you enjoy this mockup as much as I enjoyed making it! 😂

Because the protagonist my forthcoming book is a Cunning Woman – a witch – I have had a good excuse to delve into all sorts of arcane and metaphysical reading.

When I came across a review of Literary Witches – a Celebration of Magical Women Writers by Taisia Kitaiskaia on the Wild Hunt blog, I was so impressed by the beautiful illustrations by Katy Horan and the fantastically creative concept, that I made a near instant trip to amazon to purchase it.

My writing journey has made me think a lot about the role of the witch in literature and culture. The folkloric archetypes of wise women and enchantresses are often loaded and complex, but there are also some wonderful depictions of witches in literature – nuanced, wise and witty characters who fit better with my own concept of a witch.

Some of my favourite contemporary fictional descriptions of witches come from Terry Pratchett. If you follow me on twitter, you might have noticed my love of Pratchett’s work. In the Wee Free Men, Granny Weatherwax tries to explain to Tiffany Aching, a young apprentice witch, what she does. “We look to … the edges” Granny replies. “There’s a lot of edges, more than people know. Between life and death, this world and the next, night and day, right and wrong … an’ they need watchin’. We watch ’em, we guard the sum of things. And we never ask for any reward. That’s important.”

To me, writing also travels through these liminal spaces – writers have dipped their pens into the dark inky blackness of uncertainty to travel into the grey areas, to shine a light into unseen places and to create worlds beyond our own that touch deep places in our consciousness and dreams. Words have power and female writers have harnessed this power to spin magical webs of meaning for centuries.

Literary Witches draws out their definition of witch as denoting “an outsider,” and “a change agent,” “her work is sparked by speech: an incantation, a naming, a blessing, a curse.” The words of the women chosen for inclusion in Literary Witches have sometimes been familiar to me, but there are other women who I have not come across before.  The playful, surreal descriptions of the writers I have not read are a welcome introduction and often a means of conjuring to life a woman who is not remembered to the extent that she deserves.

The women honoured in Literary Witches belong to a broad sweep of time frames, countries and genres. Virginia Woolf and Mary Shelley rub shoulders with Sappho, Octavia Butler, Toni Morrison and Gertrude Stein.

Each literary witch is given a double page spread – with a detailed portrait, rich with detail and symbolism, a witch nom de guerre (my favourite of these is Charlotte Perkins Gilman – “Soothsayer of Utopias, creeping women and evil wallpaper.”), a poetic, mystical summation of their life and work and a recommended reading section.

There are of course women who I would love to see in here – Dion Fortune, Ursula K. Le Guin,  Isabel Allende, and Maya Angelou among others, but that just gives me hope for a second volume at some point in the future after all, how could just one volume collect and represent all of the literary witches we love?

 

 

 

Before the snow hit came, on a dull and overcast day, I took a little research trip to Kinver to visit the rock houses.

These houses are in part what inspired me to give Meryall, the protagonist of my forthcoming book, a cave home – the eponymous Horn Cottage.

The Kinver houses are caved into a ridge of sandstone in Kinver, Staffordshire. The residents found the workable nature of the sandstone beneficial – the houses were easy to carve out and it was possible to extend the homes quickly by excavating a new room.

The houses were reported to be cool in summer and warm in the winter – the thick stone walls acting as excellent insulation. There was a spring which provided fresh well water and the residents once spoke of the peaceful views and healthful position of their houses. The houses had pretty gardens sloping away from the front doors, with open aspects looking out over Kinver Edge.

The houses were lived in up until about the 1960s – for a while, they had become a major local tourist attraction, with Edwardian visitors coming to take tea and visit the quaint homes, but they fell into disrepair after the last residents moved out and the tea rooms closed.

The cave houses are run by the National Trust. There is a little tea room in one of the restored cave houses and you can walk around two of the cave homes.

On the day we visited, it was bitterly cold, but the houses were cosy and warm, with the fires lit… I guess one of the plus sides of a historic building made of stone is that it is safe to have candles and fires inside! I felt that I could happily live in these beautiful homes.

I particularly enjoyed how ingeniously the chimneys were fitted through the sandstone.

And how the doors and windows were carved out of the rugged rock.

There was one area we couldn’t visit -because a colony of bats had moved in and were in need of some quiet time away from prying eyes.

The National Trust also owns the land around the cave houses – Kinver Edge. We took a pleasant walk through the trees and up the hill to the site of an ancient hill fort. The hills are currently home to these handsome long horn cattle, who carried on grazing quietly as we passed them by.

Have you visited the rock houses at Kinver – or cave dwellings anywhere else in the world? I’d love to hear about it.

Prudence x

 

I am part of a group of storytellers and consequently, I spend time looking for traditional stories and folklore for various events. I came across mentions of this local story, but couldn’t find much detail, so I have tried to put some flesh on the bones of this little ghost story from Kinver in Staffordshire, England.

Lottie is said to be one of the many ghosts who haunt the mysterious area of Kinver Edge, which is the last remaining part of an ancient forest. It is also the location of the cave houses I’ve mentioned previously as part of the inspiration for Meryall’s house, Horn Cottage, in my forthcoming book.

I hope you enjoy this short piece of local folk mythology.

Prudence

Lottie’s Footsteps

The winter of 1850 was harsh and cold. The fish suffocated in the ponds under an inch of ice and people shivered in their homes in the village of Kinver, many unable to afford to keep their fires burning through the long cold nights.

In the dark high street, a cheery light shone from the windows of the White Hart Inn. Lottie, the young serving wench, had spent a long shift serving the guests forced into the inn from the coach road by the foul weather. Her feet were stinging with fatigue from standing so long, and she was glad of the chill night air on her hot face as she stepped out of the side door into the street.

The moon was full and bright as she made her way through the quiet streets of the town, looking up at the sparkling icicles on the edge of the rooftops from time to time.

Lottie’s way home took her down the main street and then on into the narrow streets at the edge of the village. The moon’s light could not penetrate the close lanes and alleys, but Lottie knew them well and walked on confidently, humming as she went, the fresh snow crunching under her neat boots. Lottie paused, noticing her lace had come loose. Crouching to retie it she heard the sound of a foot lowered gently into the snow behind her. Her heart contracted in fear, and Lottie jerked upright, looking wildly around. She could see only cold white snow laid out all around her, with no soul other than herself in sight.

Her heart still beating hard in her breast, Lottie walked on, still humming softly in a show of unconcern. Lottie looked dead ahead as she walked, but strained her ears to trace every sound around her.

Lottie walked on for what felt like an age, then pulled to a sharp stop. There was the soft crunch of a foot coming to rest in the snow – just behind her.

Lottie did not look back. She ran, her black boots pounding, slipping and sliding on the snow-covered cobbles as she went.

Lottie zigzagged through the alleys, desperately trying to rid herself of her pursuer, but the heavy steps behind her drew closer and closer until Lottie could almost feel hot breath on her neck. Lottie tried to scream, but could not make a sound.

Then, there was only darkness as Lottie felt a sharp blow on her head and crumpled to the ground.

She awoke – she could not tell how long she had been unconscious, maybe for a moment, maybe for hours. Her head was dangling down, and she felt a powerful shoulder swaying under her stomach – she was slung over the shoulder of a big, tall man. She could smell liquor on his breath and the smell of sweat on his rough wool great coat. Lottie tried to remain limp in his grasp so that he would not notice that she was awake. Lottie could not see much from her position and had no sense of where the man might be taking her.

Inch by inch, Lottie raised her hand, trying to move with the sway of her captor’s gait, until she had her hand on the clasp of her cloak- a little pearl pin her mother had given her. In one swift movement, she pulled the pin free, jabbed it point first into the man’s buttocks and rolled off his shoulder. The man bellowed in pain and confusion and flailed around, finding himself holding only Lottie’s cloak.

Lottie sprinted away through the trees- she knew it not, but she was running towards Kinver Edge.

The man grunted and strolled after her. He was in no rush – he was an excellent tracker, and the girl would not get far, uncloaked and alone in the icy woods. The moonlight shone on Lottie’s footsteps, and he walked softly alongside them.

Step by step he traced her, through the trees and into a large clearing. Left foot, right foot, left- the man frowned in puzzlement and dropped to his knees, examining the tracks. There was no right footstep after that final left. There were no more footsteps – only smooth, virgin snow. He looked up – there were no trees within reach above him- she could not have leapt up into their limbs.

The clearing throbbed with an unnatural silence, broken only by the soft fall of snow upon snow.

His heart pounding, the man ran, heedless of where he went and wishing only to get away from the fearful blank snow.

The man’s body was found by the villagers, frozen beneath a covering of snow. But try as they may, the villagers could find no trace of Lottie.

It is whispered, even now, however, by the poachers who have cause to walk on the Edge after dark, that they sometimes hear a soft voice humming a sweet song on wintery nights.

Meryall’s 17th century Lancashire is very different to our own. Christianity has never taken hold and the craft of the cunning folk has flourished without the zealous oversight of the church.

Meryall lives in the woodland outside the village of Thornton-Cleveleys, in an ancient cave house built into a long ridge of rock.

Although Meryall’s cave house is fictitious (it was actually inspired by cave houses closer to my own home, such as those in Kinver and this one in the Wyre Forest featured on Grand Designs), Thornton-Cleveleys, as it’s residents and visitors will attest, is quite real… although somewhat different in real life!

An ancient site, there is evidence of habitation in the area from the Iron Age onwards. If I was to be accurate, I would simply call the village Thornton, as it did not merge with seaside resort of Cleveleys until much later than my story takes place, however, it is an alternate history and I liked the name so much that I decided it should stay!

Thornton-Cleveleys is situated with the river Wyre to one side and the coast line to the other.

Changes to the landscape through marsh drainage and through industry have resulted in the face of the area altering greatly over the centuries, but in Meryall’s timeline, the marshy land, forest, river and sea remain relatively untouched.

Her village is a lively one, with a busy market day and good trade links due to it’s proximity to the coast and river.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my depiction of Thornton-Cleveleys – and that you get the chance to visit the real place, if you haven’t already!

Prudence

I am very excited to show you the beautiful cover of my new book, The Path to Horn Cottage.

The Path to Horn Cottage is a mystery book set in 17th century Lancashire – the era of the witch trials. However, there are no trials in village cunning woman Meryall Holt’s world, because England is not a Christian country. Instead Meryall, is a respected member of her community, working her charms and sharing her skill with herbs and divination with the people of her village.

Sheriff Wyot will need to call upon her divination skills to help solve the mystery of a missing girl… and Meryall will need all of her wits about her as she finds herself facing a formidable adversary.

I’ll be sharing photos, research and more snippets of Meryall’s world- which centres around the Lancashire village of Thornton Cleveleys – in the coming weeks.

Look out for The Path to Horn Cottage in June 2018!

Prudence x