Harper Perennial has announced the U.S. release of WITCH TRIAL, the new novel from author and UK television personality Harriet Tyce, arriving in American bookstores on September 29, 2026. Already a national bestseller in the UK — debuting at #7 on the hardback chart — the book blends courtroom drama with occult menace and psychological horror in a way that horror and thriller readers will find hard to put down.
The story opens with a murder. Eighteen-year-old Christian Shaw is found dead in a park in Edinburgh, and two of her school friends, Eliza Lawson and Isobel Smyth, are charged with the killing. As social media explodes with theories and the city demands answers, whispers of dark rituals and a teenage pact gone horribly wrong begin to surface. A respected heart surgeon named Matthew Phillips serves as a reluctant juror, only to find himself inexorably drawn into the case — and soon begins seeing things that cannot be real. Or can they?
Tyce, a former criminal barrister who spent nearly a decade in London’s legal system, draws directly on her professional experience. Inspired by Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and the real history of Edinburgh’s own devastating witch trials — in which thousands were executed on the castle esplanade — she uses the city’s haunted geography as both backdrop and character. The book joins her previous Sunday Times bestsellers, with her back catalog now translated into more than 25 languages and topping a million copies sold globally.
“A legal thriller unlike any you’ve ever read, this mind-melting page-turner is Tyce at her whip-smart best,” writes Ellery Lloyd, author of The Club.
WITCH TRIAL (Harper Perennial; $19.99; Trade Paperback Original; 400 pages) is available for preorder now and goes on sale September 29, 2026 — timed perfectly for Halloween reading season.
