March 2026 Book of the Month | Caly recommends... The Last Witch on the Knock - Aimée MacDonald

Caly says... A fantastically mesmerizing debut following an unsettled young woman in the aftermath of a toxic breakup and the ancient curse that haunts her during a hazy summer in the Scottish Highlands. Wonderfully funny and feverish, The Last Witch on the Knock is a vivid blend of folk horror and contemporary fiction exploring the mental and bodily suffering of women, historically to the present. Reading like a twisty modern fairytale, this is an original and razor-sharp retelling of a Celtic witchcraft myth not to be missed!

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The Knock hill is a carcass unintelligible as any dream. Wouldn't you rather be a witch than a victim? I didn't realise those were my only options.

In need of a fresh start, Thomasin leaves her toxic boyfriend, absent father and empty friendships to spend the summer in the Scottish Highlands with her eccentric Aunt Agnes and stern little cousin, Nina. But amidst the sprawling fields and ragged hills thrums a secret that has cursed the land for generations.

300 years earlier, Kate McNiven labours in The Big House by the Knock hill, wishing for a brighter future far away from the lecherous clutches of her master, the Laird. When she is exiled as a witch for refusing to succumb to his advances, Kate finds the escape she so desperately seeks in Thomasin, whose vulnerable body becomes her unwilling host. In the thin place between centuries, through a pulsing wound that bleeds out history, the truth of the past is finally ready to be revealed...