Ashes & Stones Signed Paperback
£12.99 GBP
This is the UK paperback edition with cover illustration by Iain Macarthur, individually signed by Allyson.
- shortlisted by the Royal Society of Literature for the Christopher Bland Prize
- a Waterstones Book of the Month
- published by Sceptre/Hodder & Stoughton, 2023
- 292 pages
Ashes and Stones is a personal journey, along rugged coasts and through remote villages and modern cities, in search of the traces of those accused of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Scotland. We visit modern memorials, roadside shrines 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.
"...an incantational group biography...Shaw passes over centuries-old footsteps like fingers on Braille; the lilt of her voice on the page is lyrical magic."
-- The New York Times
"...atmospheric, scholarly – and gripping – Ashes & Stones... gives life to many of the women burned as witches in Scotland. Shocking and important – it made me realise this hasn’t been done before, nor have I questioned why until now."
-- Laline Paull, author of Pod and The Bees
"…attentive and reverant, grounded in place and presence…a book that listens as much as it tells."
-- Charles Martin, bestselling author of The Mountain Between Us
"Allyson Shaw has built a monument in words to the thousands persecuted as witches in Scotland. A fascinating and necessary book."
-- Peter Ross, author of A Tomb with a View
"Ashes & Stones is its own reminder of a dark period in Scotlands’s past, but also carries a warning for the present day…This is not the book you think it is, and it is all the better for it."
-- Alistair Braidwood, Snack Magazine
"This is a remarkable book alive with the beauty and terror of Scotland centuries earlier – as if the author reached out a hand and took the reader with her on that journey...The delicate balance between Allyson Shaw’s inner life and personal reasons for making the journey set against the stories of those whose lives were lost is beautifully rendered, while the writing throughout is sublime."
-- Carol Ann Lee, author of A Cruel Love: the Ruth Ellis Story