Bladys of the Stewponey

In the wild borderlands between Staffordshire and Worcestershire, where sandstone cliffs house ancient rock dwellings and old customs die hard, a young woman becomes the stake in a bowling match between two brothers. This is Bladys's world: a place of buried treasure, highwaymen, and a brutal tradition called 'the burning' - where a widow joins her husband on the funeral pyre. When Bladys is won and lost in a game of bowls, then married to a man who may or may not be alive, she finds herself entangled in dark desires, ancient superstitions, and a mystery that stretches back to the Civil War. Sabine Baring-Gould, best known for penning 'Onward Christian Soldiers,' crafted something strange and unsettling here: part local-color romance, part folk horror, part tale of persecution. The result is a gothic masterpiece of Victorian regional fiction that reads like a fever dream - dark, atmospheric, and utterly unafraid of the ugly truths buried in England's pastoral past.