Dark Enchantment

Exhausted after years of unhappiness in the French Riviera, 20-year-old Juliet Firth is delighted to find herself living in a village in the French Alps. Recovering in the fresh air of the mountains, she becomes involved in local life. As Juliet makes new friends and meets fellow wanderers - such as the handsome young Michael - she hears of stories of witchery, of fortunes told, of spells, and murder... but are the rumours of the witch true, and can Juliet escape in time? Written in 1953, Dark Enchantment evokes a magical pre-war France, and was written after her successful and influential novels The Uninvited and The Unforeseen.

DOROTHY MACARDLE (1889-1958), an Irish writer, novelist, playwright, and historian, was born in Dundalk into a wealthy brewing family. A member of the Gaelic League and Cumann na mBan, Macardle spent time imprisoned because of her activities during the Irish Civil War. She later wrote about those experiences in Earthbound: Nine Stories of Ireland (1924). One of her most famous books was The Irish Republic (1937), a narrative account of the Irish War of Independence and its aftermath. She died in Drogheda in 1958, critical of what she saw as the reduced status of women in the 1937 Constitution of Ireland.