https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/30/francine-toon-pine-witches-are-empowered-women-

Her gothic debut novel, Pine, draws on childhood years in the Scottish Highlands and eerie links between the paranormal and the patriarchy

Francine Toon spent two years of her childhood in the Scottish Highlands, near a town called Dornoch – “the last place in the UK to execute someone for witchcraft,” she says with a shiver.

Toon and other kids played in nearby Clashmore forest, frightening each other with stories about ghosts, or serial killers, or babysitters who meet horrible ends. “They made a big impression, those stories,” she says. “When it came to telling them myself I enjoyed embellishing them, and this gave me a sense of control over the thing that was scaring me. Writing Pine, I realised I was doing the same thing.”