"A debut literary historical thriller based on the witch hunts in 1640s England--the most intense in English history--in which Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, convicted more than a hundred women of witchcraft. In 1645, Alice Hopkins returns to her brother's house in disgrace, husbandless and pregnant. The brother she remembers is now a grown man and he's hunting witches: women who live on the margins of society--often childless widows, or women with deformities or feeble minds who are rejected by their communities. Viewed through the eyes of Alice, this is a woman's story of fear, friendship, love, betrayal, and redemption. What--or who--is Matthew really hunting? And to what dark place will his obsession lead them all?"--