The House Where It Happened: A Novel

It is 1711, and the Ulster-Scots community in a remote corner of Ireland is in turmoil. A pretty young newcomer is accusing one woman after another of witchcraft. But Ellen, the serving girl in the house where the visitor is staying, is loyal to the family – and over-fond of her master. Yet she knows that Knowehead is a house like no other.

And so she watches and ponders, as a seemingly normal girl claims she is bewitched. As a community turns against eight respectable woman. And as malevolent forces unleashed more than half a century earlier threaten a superstitious people beyond their understanding.

Martina Devlin has fictionalised a compelling episode from history, transforming it into a spine-chilling tale.

- The House Where it Happened is a deeply atmospheric novel inspired by the true story of the last conviction for witchcraft in Ireland which happened in County Antrim on March 31st, 1711.

- For fans of Susan Hill’s ‘The Woman in Black and Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Jamaica Inn’

- Praise for The House Where it Happened:

‘Martina Devlin is an immensely skilled storyteller and I was utterly gripped by this book's power. Its sulphurous shadows and air of suppressed menace remind you that the author of Wuthering Heights had Ulster blood, like Devlin’ – Joseph O’Connor