Autumn Reads
The arrival of autumn sees the weather getting chillier and the nights drawing in which makes it a perfect time to stay cosy indoors and curl up with a book.
There are lots of great books to enjoy during autumn, here are a few of our highlights…
For those who enjoy a classic crime novel, Autumn Chills by Agatha Christie is one to enjoy during the autumn months.
Autumn is the season of misty mornings and cosy nights in, but as the leaves begin to fall the nights get longer and the shadows grow darker…
Secluded cottages, eerie manors and ghostly hauntings and cursed tombs abound in this collection of 12 supernatural mysteries and murderous plots featuring Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and Agatha Christie’s other favourite detectives.
The Burnings by Naomi Kelsey is a beautifully written novel that will keep you turning the pages late into the night.
1589.
Scottish housemaid Geillis and Danish Courtier Margareta lead opposite lives, but they both know one thing: when a man cries ‘witch’, no woman is safe. Yet when the marriage of King James VI and Princess Anna of Denmark brings Geillis and Margareta together, everything they supposed about good, evil, men, and women, is cast in a strange and brilliant new light.
For the first time in history, could black magic - or rumours of it - be a very real tool for women’s political gain?
As the North Berwick witch trials whip Scotland - and her king - into a frenzy of paranoia, the clock is ticking.
When you live on the edge of society, it only takes ones step to fall between the cracks.
Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At 51 years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty.
Inside the walls of their old cottage they make music, and in the garden they grow (and sometimes kill) everything they need for sustenance. But when Dot dies suddenly, threats to their livelihood start raining down. Jeanie and Julie would do anything to preserve their small sanctuary against the perils of the outside world, even as their mother’s secrets begin to unravel, putting everything they thought they knew about their lives at stake.
William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English literature changes his life, and he never returns to work on his father’s farm.
Stoner becomes a teacher. He marries the wrong woman. His life is quiet, and after his death, his colleagues remember him rarely. Yet with truthfulness, compassion and intense power, this novel uncovers a story of universal value - of the conflicts, defeats and victories of the human race that pass unrecorded by history - and in doing so reclaims the significance of an individual life.
Best friends and sisters, the four Padavano girls bring loving chaos to their close-knit Italian American neighbourhood.
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So, when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano, it’s as if the world has lit up around him.
With Julia comes her family: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. But when darkness from William’s past begins to block the light of his future, it is Sylvie, not Julia, who becomes his closest confidante. The result is a catastrophic rift that leaves the family inhabiting two sides of a fault line.
Born from a long line of female warriors and crusaders, yet too coarse for courtly life, Marie de France is cast from the royal court and sent to Angleterre to take up her new duty as the prioress of an impoverished abbey.
Lauren Groff's modern masterpiece is about the establishment of a female utopia.
Borders Witch Hunt provides an overview and analysis of the witch trials in the Scottish Borders in the 17th century.
The 17th century was a time of upheaval in Scottish and British history, with a civil war, the abolition of the monarchy, the plague and the reformation all influencing the social context at the time.
This book explores the social, political, geographical, religious and legal structures that led to the increased amount of witch trials and executions in the Scottish Borders. As well as looking at specific trials the book also explores the role of women, both as accuser and as accused.