A modern day witch story penned by Dunscore-based author Sally Hinchcliffe has been chosen as Waterstones’ October Book of the month for Scotland.
Sally, who moved to Dumfriesshire from London in 2008, works full-time as a freelance writer and editor and is also known in the region for her cycle campaigning locally and nationally through Cycling Dumfries, Pedal on Parliament, and the Women’s Cycle Forum Scotland.
She said the region’s history of witch trials was the inspiration for her to write this spooky second novel called Hare House – which is gaining critical acclaim.
Sally, who talked about Hare House at a free event in Dumfries Waterstones on the High Street recently, said: “I’ve been delighted to see pictures of my book appearing in Waterstones displays up and down the country but it is particularly important to celebrate it here in Dumfries and Galloway.
“I’m thrilled to see Hare House chosen as Scottish Book of the Month and I hope it encourages more people to come and see the region for themselves.
“The book is immersed in the landscape and its history and folklore and I couldn’t have written it anywhere else.”
Described as “a folk horror tale on a Scottish estate,” the book was also a hit at the recent Wigtown Book Festival where Sally was a guest author.
A special edition paperback has been produced by Pan Macmillan to mark its selection as Book of the Month.
Described as bringing the dark past to life in a contemporary tale, a review in the Times called it “a marvellously nasty piece of distinctly Scottish gothic”.
The chilling paperback with a local setting starts with the first brisk days of autumn when a woman arrives in Scotland having left her job at an all-girls school in London in mysterious circumstances.
Moving into a cottage on the remote estate of Hare House, she begins to explore her new home - a patchwork of hills, moorland and forest.
But among the tiny roads, dykes and scattered houses, something more sinister lurks: local tales of witchcraft, clay figures and young men sent mad. Striking up a friendship with her landlord, Grant, and his younger sister, Cass, she begins to suspect that all might not be quite as it seems at Hare House.
And as autumn turns to winter, and a heavy snowfall traps the inhabitants of the estate within its walls, tensions rise to fever pitch.
Hare House is Sally’s second novel with her first, Out of a Clear Sky (published by Pan Macmillan in May 2008) selected as the May Book of the Month by Radio Five Live’s Book Panel.
It also featured as a Book at Bedtime on Radio 4.
Sally was born in London in 1969 but says she “grew up all over the world” as her father served the Foreign Office in New York, Kuwait, Tanzania, Dubai, Zambia and Jordan.
She was educated at Dollar Academy in Scotland and at Cranleigh School, Surrey, and Oriel College, Oxford.
Since 1994 she has worked for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, in the IT department, developing databases to support its scientific work.
In 2001 she took a two year sabbatical from Kew to work in Eswatini (then Swaziland) as a volunteer with Skillshare Interna- tional.
