A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2024
A BBC BEST BOOK OF 2024

In thirteenth-century Ireland, a woman with power is a woman to be feared.

When a young Alice Kyteler sees her mother wither under the constraints of family responsibilities, she vows that she won't suffer the same fate. Soon Alice discovers she has a flair for making money, and builds a flourishing business. But as her wealth and stature grow, so too do the rumours about her private life. By the time she has moved on to her fourth husband, a blaze of local gossip and resentment culminates in an accusation that could prove fatal.

Inspired by the first recorded person in Ireland to have been condemned as a witch, Bright I Burn gives voice to a woman lost to history, who dared to carve her own space in a man's world.

"Mesmerising . . . An imaginative, very stylishly written and entertaining book" - * Irish Times *

"Gripping" - * NEW YORKER *

"An incredible medieval life rendered in incandescent flashes" - * Kirkus *

"Vividly recreates medieval Ireland, its challenges and customs, its increasingly influential clergy, its gossiping townspeople. There's an ever-encroaching sense of death and violence, whether in the harsh natural world or the brutal world of men. Amid this, Alice is a driven and often ruthless woman" - * Irish Times *