Philippa Gregory, the queen of historical fiction, has turned her hand to witchcraft. Philippa’s new novel Tidelands, published this month, is a departure from her internationally bestselling recreations of the lives of Tudor and Plantaganet queens including Mary Boleyn (The Other Boleyn Girl) and Elizabeth Woodville (The White Queen). Set during the English Civil War, it doesn’t fictionalise the life of an elite historical woman – its heroine, herbalist and midwife Alinor Reekie, is as far from royalty as is possible to imagine. Alinor is a poor woman on the edge of society and her way of scratching a living singles her out for attention in a divided Britain where being seen as different could be very dangerous for a woman.