Sometimes I whisper it over to myself: Murderess. Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt along the floor.’ Grace Marks. Female fiend? Femme fatale? Or weak and unwilling victim? Around the true story of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the 1840s, Margaret Atwood has created an extraordinarily potent tale of sexuality, cruelty and mystery. Working as a lady’s companion, the orphaned heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life begins to look very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. Whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to his brooding estate, Manderley, on the Cornish Coast, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding Mrs Danvers . . . Here are sisters fighting for the love of the same woman, a pregnant archaeologist unearthing impossible bones and lost children following you home. A panther runs through the forests of England and pixies prey upon violent men. Winner of the 1926 Prix Femina Vie Heureuse Prize, Precious Bane is a novel that enchants with its beauty and its timeless truths. The Virago Book of Witches by Shahrukh Husain

Dara and Marie were trained as ballet dancers by their glamorous mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents died in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters took over running the school together with Charlie, Dara’s husband and once their mother’s prized student. When you come to the house, you will hear strange tales. They will tell you in the village that it is haunted, but you must not be afraid. When the time comes … you will know what to do.

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In these powerful and elegant tales, Edith Wharton evokes moods of disquiet and darkness within her own era. In icy new England a fearsome double foreshadows the fate of a rich young man; a married farmer is bewitched by a dead girl; a ghostly bell saves a woman’s reputation. Brittany conjures ancient cruelties, Dorset witnesses a retrospective haunting and a New York club cushions an elderly aesthete as he tells of the ghastly eyes haunting his nights. Books about witches always capture my attention. There is something about the feminist vibes these stories give you that is quite empowering. Especially when you think about the witch trials of the past and the way women have been blamed for the wrongs in society by the patriarchy throughout history. This book explores that and witches in folklore within different cultures around the globe. It was interesting to see how witches are depicted so differently in individual countries. Some are seen as healers, wise and good omens. Then you have the other side to them being seen as evil old hags and them running around placing curses on people and seducing men.

Beware the women who are called witches, or those who claim the name for themselves. . . Banshees – a howling night-witch and harbinger of death; She-devils – Lilith and her daughters; or Bitches – Hecate, whose chariot is drawn by dogs. Alluring women, enchantresses, seekers of revenge, wise old women and badly-behaved girls. As Shahrukh Husain says, witches are ‘womanhood in all its complexity’. Virago are reissuing over fifty stories of crones and nixies, shape shifters and beauties, including the loving fox witch of Japan; Italy’s Witch-Bea-Witch; Scotland’s Goodwife of Laggan; Biddy Earl and the terrifying Kali and Baba Yaga who comes in many forms to haunt, entice, possess, transform and challenge. This October we are embracing gothic and spooky season with some wonderful reads to see you through the month. Keep scrolling to find your perfect autumn read or a haunting tale for Halloween. You can find more gothic autumn reads on the Virago Store and shop your favourites here. A fun and fearless anthology of feminist tales, by fifteen bestselling, award-winning writers Hag: Forgotten Toktales Retold The stories are written in a style that is akin to the traditional old fairytales which I found at times quite hard going and I ended up having to scan read them as the words just were not sinking in. I also found, as with lots of short stories, some end up being great and highly entertaining and others less so. But I loved how they were all put into different chapters of a mixed array of topics such as Seasons and Elements and Wise Old Women etc.