About This Book
We know the truths men have forgotten…
‘Visceral, twisting, propulsive – Black Wood Women begs to be devoured' Stacey Halls
'Grim and glorious' Daily Mail
'Will leave you breathless' Sunday Post
'A vivid, inventive narrative' Sunday Times
***
The last wolf in England hunts for prey. Exhausted, hungry and alone, she fears for the litter of pups she carries, and the men who seek to wipe her out.
Yorkshire, 1649.
Since they fled Ireland, Caragh and her family have hidden their true identities to enable them to start a new life in England. But when Caragh finds her parents brutally murdered by a Protestant determined to rid the area of Catholics, she must flee again.
Travelling east, she comes to a forest, where she meets a coven of women who wear their hair loose and refuse to follow men's rules.
Having found acceptance at last, Caragh is unaware that a different kind of persecution stalks the black wood women, and their days in the forest are numbered.
Reviews
'Grim and glorious' Daily Mail
'A vivid, inventive narrative' Sunday Times
'A really beautiful blend of history and fantasy – delivered in gorgeously lyrical language' Best
‘A devilishly impassioned danse macabre of a novel that grips the reader by the hand and refuses to let go from the first to the last page' Essie Fox
'Complex and heartbreaking, a liminal thing that burns with the heat haze of history and fiction meeting… Stewart's Black Wood Women is an utterly compelling read' A.G. Slatter
'Black Wood Women has the lived-in realism of a great and well-researched historical fiction, and distinguishes itself with its playful, inventive, and occasionally gut-wrenching storytelling. Michael Stewart has written something altogether his own with this one.' Nick Cutter
Praise for the author
‘An astonishing novel' The Independent
'Easily outdoes the original Heathcliff' The Times Literary Supplement
'Beautifully written and thrilling' Yorkshire Post
'Visceral and unswerving' Historia Magazine
About the author
Michael Stewart is the author of three other novels: King Crow (winner of the Guardian's Not-the-Booker Award), Café Assassin and Ill Will: The Untold Story of Heathcliff; two short story collections: Mr Jolly and Four Letter Words; two poetry collections: Couples and The Dogs; and a hybrid memoir: Walking the Invisible: Following in the Brontës' Footsteps.
He is also the creator of the Brontë Stones project, four monumental stones situated in the landscape between the Brontë sisters' birthplace and the parsonage where they lived, inscribed with poems by Kate Bush, Carol Ann Duffy, Jeannette Winterson and Jackie Kay.
He has written for TV, radio and stage, and is the winner of the BBC Alfred Bradley Bursary Award and the BBC Short Range film competition. His BBC Radio 4 drama Excluded was shortlisted for the Imison Award. He was head of Creative Writing at the University of Huddersfield for eighteen years.
