Weyward: Discover the unique, original and unforgettable fiction debut novel of 2023 – a BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick and #2 Times Bestseller

Altha. Healer.

Weyward. A strange name for a house. The familiar word with the odd spelling, as if it’s been twisted away from itself.

It was her mother and grandmother that she longed for. She hadn’t known either of them, not really, and yet she felt their loss as keenly as a missing limb. For

Time seemed changed by the trial. Whereas before, my days had been broken up by little rituals and milestones – milking the goat of a morning; picking berries in the afternoon; readying tonics for the sick in the evening – now there was just court and sleep. Fear and dreams.

She kept her other books – Grimms’ Fairy Tales; The Secret Garden – the stories that became a salve during those long nights when the only sign of life from her mother’s bedroom was the neon glow of the television under the door. Fiction became a friend as well as a safe harbour; a cocoon to protect her from the outside world and its dangers.

Sight is a funny thing. Sometimes it shows us what is before our eyes. But sometimes it shows us what has already happened, or will yet come to pass.

There’s no way her hearing is that good. She’s imagining things, like she used to as a child. ‘Come down from those clouds,’ her parents used to say, catching her in one of her reveries.

He climbed down from the stand slowly, and I saw his age in his faltering movements. The intimidating figure I remembered from childhood was diminished.

Perhaps one day, she said, there would be a safer time. When women could walk the earth, shining bright with power, and yet live. But until then I should keep my gift hidden, move through only the darkest corners of the world, like a beetle through soil.