The Torching

By: Marcy Heidish

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Synopsis: With this spellbinding tale of mysticism, horror, and history, a gifted, award-winning writer breaks new ground. Marcy Heidish gives us a novel to rival the works of Anne Rice, Alfred Hitchcock, or Edgar Allan Poe-- a disturbing story about the interplay of present and past, lightness and dark, grace and evil. This is a tale of an eighteenth- century midwife, apothecary, and accused priestess of the occult, Evangeline Smith, who has been sentenced to burn as a witch in the tiny town of Maidstone, Maryland. Writing her story is Alice Grey, a contemporary novelist and owner of a rare book store in Washington, D.C. As Alice investigates Evangeline's life and records the extraordinary events that brought her to her fiery death two centuries before, the destinies of the two women begin to intertwine. Inexplicable things begin to happen. Objects move of their own volition, spontaneous fires pose ominous perils, people are murdered. By the time Alice uncovers the terrifying truth of what really happened in Maidstone, events have spun out of control. Skillfully interweaving the immediate with the historical, the spiritual with the commonplace, Heidish moves us suddenly and swiftly beyond the realm of rationality toward a breathtaking climax.