Fleetwood Shuttleworth is 17 years old, married, and pregnant for the fourth time. But as the mistress at Gawthorpe Hall, she still has no living child, and her husband Richard is anxious for an heir. When Fleetwood finds a letter she isn't supposed to read from the doctor who delivered her third stillbirth, she is dealt the crushing blow that she will not survive another pregnancy. Then she crosses paths by chance with Alice Gray, a young midwife....

In 1856 William Dove poisoned his wife, was tried & executed. Believing a fortune teller's prediction that he would remarry a more attractive & richer woman, Dove made a pact with the devil, hired men to perform magic & then murdered his wife. This title probes into the supernatural goings on that led to the murder.

In 1944, Helen Duncan was charged with witchcraft under the 1735 Witchcraft Act and was jailed for the duration of World War II. 'Hellish Nell' was first published in 2001 to widespread acclaim. It remains, in this revised edition, a fascinating window into the unsettled spiritual and psychological mood of the times: a sensational tale of spectacle, credulity and cruelty, and of Britain's last witch.