Author returns to Ilkley bookshop with blazing new novel

Thursday, 6 June 2024 18:00

Author Molly Aitken returns to The Grove Bookshop in June (Photo: Christy Ku)

The Grove Bookshop is hosting a Q&A with Molly Aitken, author of historical novel, Bright I Burn, at 7pm on Thursday 13th June.

Bookshop manager Mike Sansbury said: ‘We’re thrilled to welcome Molly back to the shop to hear all about her new book, which has caused quite a buzz.’

Molly Aitken first came to the bookshop in 2020 to discuss her debut novel, The Island Child, which was longlisted for the Authors’ Club First Novel Award. Her short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, for which she won the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction and an interview with Molly features on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour on Wednesday, 5th June.

She will discuss her new novel, Bright I Burn, based on the life of Ireland’s first condemned witch, Alice Kyteler.

Alice, the daughter of a wealthy innkeeper in Kilkenny, grows up watching her mother wither under the constraints of family responsibilities. She vows that she will never suffer the same fate. In time, she discovers she has a flair for making money and takes her father’s flourishing business to new heights. But as her riches and stature grow, so too do rumours about her private life. By the time she marries her fourth husband, a storm of local gossip and resentment culminates in a life-threatening accusation.

The novel has been receiving rave reviews, including this from Clare Pollard (author of Delphi and The Modern Fairies): ‘A gorgeous, blazing novel, that makes history crackle to life. Fans of Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet or A. K. Blakemore’s The Manningtree Witches will love Aitken’s complex, sensual anti-heroine.’

Tickets are £7 and can be purchased in the shop or reserved via the website: www.grovebookshop.com/events/. Bright I Burn is published by Canongate Books on Thursday, 6th June and is available from the bookshop for £16.99.