Michael Stewart, module leader for MA Creative Writing (Online) at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB), has had his fourth novel, Black Wood Women, published by HarperCollins.
Following on the heels of King Crow (winner of the Guardian’s Not-the-Booker Award and selected as a recommended read for World Book Night), Café Assassin, and Ill Will: The Untold Story of Heathcliff (optioned by Kudos Films), Black Wood Women is a compelling work of historical fiction.
The book comes highly recommended by The Somnambulist author Essie Fox, who describes it as "a devilishly impassioned danse macabre of a novel that grips the reader by the hand and refuses to let go from the first to the last page.
"[It is] so much more than a reflection of past times because it holds the starkest mirror to the world we live in now. It is a book I will remember, for the very best of reasons."
Set in 1640s Yorkshire, the novel’s protagonist Caragh has hidden her true name and her Irish identity since her family fled from Ireland. The family become proud landowners in England but one morning, Caragh’s father tells her that they must leave their beloved home as it's no longer safe for them to stay.
That morning, Caragh hears shots fired. When she returns to the cottage, she finds her family murdered by Lemuel Lane, a wealthy Protestant who's taken it upon himself to rid the area of anyone with Catholic sympathies.
Caragh flees east, and comes to a forest, a coven of women, finding acceptance at last, little knowing that persecution stalks them, and their days in the forest are numbered. Meanwhile, the last wolf in England hunts for prey. She is tired, hungry and alone – missing her pack and her mate, and anxious about the litter of pups she carries.
Michael, who teaches on AUB's MA Creative Writing (Online) course is also the creator of the Brontë Stones project, four monumental stones situated in the landscape between the birthplace and the parsonage, inscribed with poems by Kate Bush, Carol Ann Duffy, Jeannette Winterson and Jackie Kay.
He's written for TV, radio and stage, and is the winner of the BBC Alfred Bradley Bursary Award, and the BBC Short Range film competition. Meanwhile, his BBC Radio 4 drama Excluded was shortlisted for the Imison Award.
