This Too Shall Burn

Arden lives in the woods outside Arrothburg, a town devoted to its church. She practises magic, keeps a balance with the natural world and heals the sick, as her mother did. The townspeople hate witches, yet they still come to her cabin in the dead of night for help that their pastor, mayor and doctor refuse to give.

Verity lives inside the town and hates her life there. Her mother was burned as a witch six years ago, and since then Verity has looked after her father and her younger siblings. Scripture tells her to serve, and she does.

It also tells her to endure the severe pain of her monthly bleeding without medicine, comfort or complaint. She has begun to ask why a kind God would curse her this way.

When Arden and Verity meet by chance, a single touch leaves both of their hands with charred skin. Neither can explain it. Verity wonders whether something wicked lives inside her. Arden, who believes she is the only true witch for miles, wonders who is dying on the pyres.

This dark fantasy centres on two young women drawn together in a town that burns its own. Their questions are dangerous ones in a place that punishes doubt, and asking them may make Arden and Verity the next to burn.