Birlinn

I looked at Jenny, remembering her in her crib, the way her fingers played in mine, the way her cheek lay hot on my skin. I wished I had the power to give her safe passage through this life, but truth is, it would have taken a real witch to do that

you sneeze, ten people offer you a tissue, one prays for your soul, six laugh as though they’ve never sneezed in their lives, five secretly hope it’s the sign of a serious, perhaps fatal, ailment and thirteen people know it’s a cold and who you caught it from.

grew up wanting to murder everyone with loving-kindness.

Macy meant it when she smiled and she smiled often; you felt safe in her company.

novel contest in 2020, a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2015, a spot as Cove

Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.’

MARY SHELLEY

plifying the voices of underrepresented writers. She now lives in County Durham with her daughter, Molly, and a host of four-legged family members

It boiled and it raged until the rocks wept and the dawn cursed

He hadn’t believed them on his first crossing, but now . . . now there could be no other explanation.

‘This is the work of witches.’

It was 1982 (although it could have been ’81). I was five years old,