The sleepy Oxfordshire village of Mantle is quintessentially English, with its 14th century church, Victorian school, traditional pub, and a large oval-shaped green. But beneath its pretty façade, trouble is brewing. Marable Willow runs a Night School, an educational forum, intent on redressing the balance between official, male versions of history, and a female-oriented re-examination of the past, and of the women who’ve been ignored by an arrogant, patriarchal establishment.

However, according to George Spragg, leader of the Village Council, Willow is a witch, plain and simple, and the Night School is merely a front for dangerously dark magic, and lesbian debauchery.Meanwhile, Peter Heseltine, the new owner of Artemis House, discards his clutter, in preparation for yogic transcendence.A simple tale of village revolution. In the words of DCI Ron Bellamy: “Bloody ludicrous. You couldn’t make this shit up.”DPL was born in Warwick in 1954.

Educated via Dartington College of Arts, and the University of Warwick, he moved to south-east Wales in 1987. A regular contributor to International Times, 2016-2921, as Dafydd ap Pedr, and author of Hereticals, 2021 (PublishNation).Mantle is his only novel.