This inventive page-turner opens with a superb sense of peril as sixteen-year-old Alfie moves from Bristol to spend summer in a small village in the north of England. There’s menace from the moment he chances upon a stone in a churchyard and local girl Mia explains the superstitions around it - if a person walks around the stone three times uttering the words “I don‘t believe in witches” Meg Shelton will come for you! Keen to show he doesn’t believe such nonsense, Alfie does exactly that - with immediate menacing effects, and it’s not long before he realises that he’s become a conduit for Meg, a woman murdered for being a witch way back in 1705.
Defying convention and expectation, not only is this a gripping page-turner, but it’s brilliantly funny too, with comedy springing forth the moment Meg springs into Alfie’s life (and shower…). What’s more, it’s also edge-of-your-seat pacey as Alfie and Mia - with the help of Mia’s witch-expert aunt - race against time to help Meg make peace with her past, with the stakes high, and their feelings running pretty high too.
Beneath this stone lie the remains of Meg Shelton, alleged witch of Woodplumpton, buried in 1705. After a messy breakup with his girlfriend, Alfie needs to get away for a while - so he decides to spend the summer holidays with his dad in a tiny village in the North of England. In the local church graveyard, he chances upon a boulder with a strange inscription - and meets Mia, who then tells him about the local superstition surrounding the stone. If you walk three times around the stone and say I don't believe in witches, Meg will come after you.' Alfie, in a reckless attempt to show his bravery, accepts the superstition as a challenge. He thinks the story is nonsense. But it soon becomes apparent that he's just made the biggest mistake of his life...
Danny Weston is the YA pen name for popular children and YA writer Philip Caveney. He was born in North Wales in 1951 and now lives in Edinburgh. His first novel, The Sins of Rachel Ellis was published in 1977 and he produced a series of adult thrillers over the following decades. His first novel for younger readers, Sebastian Darke: Prince of Fools was released in 2007 and was published all around the world. Since then, he has concentrated on writing exclusively for younger readers.
Danny's debut novel The Piper won the Scottish Children’s Book Award in 2016 and in 2018, The Haunting of Jessop Rise was shortlisted for the Scottish Teenage Book prize and nominated for a Carnegie Medal.
