The Daylight Gate - Tapa dura

"If you like her other novels, you will adore this. She has done her homework... the beauty of the writing, exemplary in its pared-down simplicity. It’s so seductive that by the middle I was hooked." (Independent)

"Sharp-eyed view of history... Winterson is at her best her when she’s dealing with real horrors." (Observer)

"This is a dazzling book. Winterson is a deft storyteller and a writer of wonderful economy. Even in a book as melodramatic as this, she manages to convey character and setting with so few words that you scarcely notice it has been done... Winterson does all that any Hammer reader would want - and probably too much for some squeamish types - as well as writing a novel of subtlety and depth. It is also, amid the blood, mud and violence, intensely poetic. The imagery of the wild land with its dark towers and possessed creatures - animal and human - underpins a story about love and death and the possibility of unseen worlds. It is one of the very few contemporary novels that I actually wished were longer." (Literary Review)

"This I ought to say, is a book worth reading – utterly compulsive, thick with atmosphere and dread, but sharp intelligence too...Ultimately she combines compelling history and poetic dialogue with suspense...This rather more sophisticated story would make a particularly vivid film." (Telegraph)

"Beautifully written." (Independent on Sunday)

Can a man be maimed by witchcraft?

Can a severed head speak?

Based on the most notorious of English witch-trials, this is a tale of magic, superstition, conscience and ruthless murder.

It is set in a time when politics and religion were closely intertwined; when, following the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, every Catholic conspirator fled to a wild and untamed place far from the reach of London law.

This is Lancashire. This is Pendle. This is witch country.