A new booking author I found on tiktok, After hearing the blurb I knew it was for me!!

Ashes And Stones By Allyson Shaw

A moving and personal journey, along rugged coasts and through remote villages and cities, in search of the traces of those accused of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Scotland.

In Ashes and Stones we visit modern memorials and standing stones, and roam among forests and hedge mazes, folklore and political fantasies. From fairy hills to forgotten caves, we explore a spellbound landscape.

Allyson Shaw untangles the myth of witchcraft and gives voice to those erased by it. Her elegant and lucid prose weaves together threads of history and feminist reclamation to create a vibrant memorial. This is the untold story of the witches’ monuments of Scotland and the women’s lives they mark. Ashes and Stones is a trove of folklore linking the lives of contemporary women to the horrors of the past, a record of resilience and a call to choose and remember our ancestors.

‘Allyson Shaw has built a monument in words to the thousands persecuted as witches in Scotland. A fascinating and necessary book.’ Peter Ross

‘A compelling and intimate pilgrimage across Scotland’ Helen Callaghan.

About the author
“Her voice on the page is lyrical magic…”–The New York Times.

Allyson Shaw is the author of Ashes and Stones: a Scottish Journey in Search of Witches & Witness published by Sceptre/Hodder & Stoughton in the UK and by Pegasus Books in North America. Ashes and Stones was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s 2024 Christopher Bland Prize and was chosen by Waterstones as a Scottish Book of the Month.

Shaw is a speaker, writer, and multimedia artist, presenting her work on podcasts, at literary festivals and events across Britain. Her multimedia work was recently exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum’s Copy Machine Manifesto show. Her writing on folklore and history has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Monster Verse: Poems Human and Inhuman in the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets Series, Rituals and Declarations and The Bottle Imp. Her speculative fiction has appeared in Luna Station Quarterly, Fireside Quarterly and Tales from Fiddler’s Green, among others. She spent her formative years in California and now lives in Orkney.

She is supported by Creative Scotland and by a grant from The Authors’ Foundation of the Society of Authors.

You tube link to Allyson Shaw

My Review What a beauty of a book,on a journey of discovery of what happened to these women, not witches but women, tortured and killed by men. To give a voice to those who’s voices were stolen for so long, and to shine a light on those that persecuted them. Weaving in the history with modern day persecutions we still have going on today. A gentle reminder that its dangerous to be born a women, no matter the ages. We hear about the authors own struggles of life too, giving this a human link to the history. Absolutely a must read for all.