Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson, one of the books I’ve borrowed from the library. It’s a novella, historical fiction set in 1612 in Lancashire, then a wild part of England at a time when the fear of witches and demons was strong, a time of superstition and fear.

The North is a dark place.

It is not safe to be buried on the north side of the Church and the North Door is the way of the Devil.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

‘You mistake me if you imagine I believe in no dark power. I believe in God and therefore I believe in the Devil.’

‘Who surely has better things to do than help the Demdike dry up cattle and sheep and bewitch pedlars.’

Description:

Good Friday, 1612. Pendle Hill, Lancashire.

A mysterious gathering of thirteen people is interrupted by local magistrate, Roger Nowell. Is this a witches’ Sabbat?

Two notorious Lancashire witches are already in Lancaster Castle waiting trial. Why is the beautiful and wealthy Alice Nutter defending them? And why is she among the group of thirteen on Pendle Hill?

Elsewhere, a starved, abused child lurks. And a Jesuit priest and former Gunpowder plotter, recently returned from France, is widely rumoured to be heading for Lancashire. But who will offer him sanctuary? And how quickly can he be caught?

This is the reign of James I, a Protestant King with an obsession: to rid his realm of twin evils, witchcraft and Catholicism, at any price…

Ever since I read Mist over Pendle by Robert Neill I’ve wanted to know more about the story of the Pendle witch trials, so this book interests me. Does it interest you too?