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A fierce, electrifying novel inspired by the true story of the first woman to be condemned as a witch in Ireland.
In thirteenth-century Ireland, a woman with power is a woman to be feared.
Alice, the daughter of a wealthy innkeeper in Kilkenny, grows up watching her mother wither under the constraints of family responsibilities—and she vows that she will never suffer the same fate. In time, she discovers she has a flair for making money, and takes her father's flourishing business to new heights. But as her riches and stature grow, so too do rumors about her private life. By the time she marries her fourth husband—the three earlier are dead—a storm of local gossip and resentment culminates in a life-threatening accusation ...
A breathtaking act of imagination, Bright I Burn gives voice to a woman lost to history, who dared to carve a space of her own in a man's world.
"Aitken...eschews convention: The historical novel, usually stuffed with worldbuilding and contextual detail, here unfolds via a lyric impressionism, moving like skipped stones through Alice's life from girlhood to old age...An incredible medieval life rendered in incandescent flashes." —Kirkus Reviews
"The blistering latest from Aitken gives voice to Alice Kyteler (1280–1325), the first Irish woman convicted of witchcraft...It adds up to a fiercely intelligent and often surprising examination of a woman's choices and their consequences." —Publishers Weekly
"Molly Aitken gives a powerful voice to Alice Kyteler, weaving a haunting and lyrical story from the strands of history. This was a beautiful, fascinating novel about an extraordinary woman that will linger in readers' memories for a long time after they finish it." —Jennifer Saint, author of Atalanta
"An astonishing second novel after her brilliant debut, Molly Aitken takes Alice Kyteler—the first woman condemned as a witch in Ireland—and breathes life into a woman as gentle as a candle's flame, and as destructive as an inferno. Lyrical and wildly imaginative, readers will love and fear Alice in equal measure and remember her story long after they've finished the last page." —Megan Barnard, author of Jezebel
"This is lustrous elemental writing, full of rich earth, smoldering flames and roiling waters—which left me gasping for air. It consumed me like a fire." —Katie Hale, author of The Edge of Solitude
This information about Bright I Burn was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Molly Aitken grew up on the south coast of Ireland. Her first novel, The Island Child, was longlisted for the Authors' Club First Novel Award. Her short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, for which she won the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction, and has been dramatized for BBC Radio 4. She is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing and History at Sheffield Hallam University.
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