I couldn't resist hiding some historical details and a few clues relevant to the plot and characters of 'A Discovery of Witches' throughout the pages of the novel.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Witches were burned and killed in Scotland and England for centuries before what happened in Salem.
My next book is on the Salem witch trials. As a small-town Massachusetts girl, this makes me very happy. So does the reunion with documents!
The number of witches had everywhere become enormous.
I was interested in what was really going on in Salem at that time, and I resolved to investigate this seemingly unorthodox treatment of the people and the period.
Witches are the kind of more traditional, home and family, craft people - so they're the ones who are making things; crocheting shawls and things like that. But then they also have that slightly confident, dangerous, edge. I always see them as having very extreme hair, either amazingly beautiful straight hair or kind of wild.
I was reading William Shawcross's biography of the Queen Mother, dressed in my witch outfit! And you know what? It was a really good mix; it was a therapeutic mix.
My first part in a play was one of the witches in 'Macbeth.'
Shakespeare also introduces the supernatural into some of his tragedies; he introduces ghosts, and witches who have supernatural knowledge.
The plain truth is that the period I study is the 16th century, and they were absolutely obsessed with witches and spiritual beings.
I do love that witches haven't really been explored that much. Usually, witches are the little side character... a bad female character that comes in and leaves.