Shocking details of her past – a first marriage to a potential abuser at four years of age, a mother who had similarly constrained options in life – combine with a present dominated by macho, misogynistic attitudes and Fleetwood’s attempts to outwit them. The vibrancy instead comes from Fleetwood herself. The trials, for all the talk they create in the book, remain oddly flat. It is a shame, as the ingredients are there: a group of women rounded up and imprisoned the lack of any material evidence the Abigail-like figure of Jennet Device, a young girl manipulated or manipulating and the ludicrous accusations that emerge in the community – “They added wood to the fire to warm the milk pan, and when Mrs Booth removed it, a toad – or a spirit disguised as a toad – came out of the fire.’”

There is none of the harrowing detail of the trial itself, none of the historical violence or threat of violence so prevalent in Sarah Moss's wonderful Ghost Wall, for example, or Martina Devlin's The House Where it Happened, an evocative reimagining of the Armagh witch trials. Fleetwood's voice is quaint but spirited and engaging, a centuries-old heroine with more than a touch of Jane Austen's Catherine Morland to her impetuous nature. Characters are well drawn – particularly Fleetwood's cold, overbearing mother – and rich historical detail is incorporated into the narrative with ease. Coupled with this is a shock discovery about Richard's life outside the house that gives great momentum to the first half of the book. Halls ramps up the stakes by having Fleetwood discover a letter from a doctor advising her husband Richard that she will die if she tries to conceive again. Married at 13, and three miscarriages later, Fleetwood needs Alice to help her deliver a healthy baby. Drawn from real-life figures, her novel tells the story of Fleetwood Shuttleworth, a 17-year-old pregnant noblewoman who finds herself caught up in the trials when her midwife, Alice Gray, is accused of witchcraft. Halls, a journalist, grew up near Pendle Hill and was fascinated by the trials from a young age. From the king down, a fear of the unknown, of the dark arts, was used as a way to subjugate, villainise and murder women. The Familiars is an incisive account of the brutal way women were treated by a patriarchal society in thrall to magic and the supernatural. At a time when the #MeToo movement was beginning to gather momentum, it is easy to see why its subject matter, a fictionalised account of the Pendle witch trials in 17th-century Lancashire, might garner such interest, culminating in a nine-way bidding auction won by Bonnier Zaffre. A debut novel, The Familiars by Stacey Halls, cast a spell over the publishing world in November 2017.

The familiars stacey halls summary