Category: Nightshade Mysteries

Shortlisted for the Best Crime Novel for Children

The Floating Witch Mystery is a fantasy thriller set in a riverside community threatened by dark magic – but only brave school reporter, Veena Vale, knows the truth.

How can Veena convince her friends that they need to band together to fight the forces of dark magic to save her beloved home, when no one believes magic even exists?

This is a brilliant, funny and fast paced adventure story that children will love’ – Books for Topics

Can Veena find a way to defeat a sinister sorcerer, discover his true plans and save the island home she loves when she has no magic of her own to fight back with?

What happens when the unluckiest boy in the world meets the greatest magical detective (who might also be a cat)?

Oakmoss Hornbeam knows he is very clumsy. In fact he’s just escaped certain death (lucky), although that did make him miss the school bus (unlucky), but also meant he made a new friend, a cat who knows a lot about magic.

Is Oakmoss simply very accident-prone, or is it possible someone has put him under a powerful ill-wishing spell? Because who on earth would want to harm a slightly undersized schoolboy?

Together with his new friend, Nightshade the cat, Oakmoss must delve into the darker side of magic and his own powerful, magical family as they attempt to discover if someone is really out to harm Oakmoss with magic. Who might want to? And why?

“Blending magical adventure with Golden Age crime mystery, this delightfully atmospheric spin-off from the author of The Last Chance Hotel confirms Thornton’s place as one of the most original children’s writers around.”

Waterstones

A school plagued by curses. A witch who cannot do magic. 

And one cat who believes she is the world’s best magical detective. 

When bad things start to happen in Raven Charming’s school, rumours build that it must be the local witch. 

But Raven has a secret. She knows exactly who the local with is – it’s her sister, Rookery, because the Charmings are a family of witches. But can it really be her sister who is to blame for all the unpleasant things that are happening? Or is there another witch in town?

Raven must find out before her sister’s secret is exposed, even though Raven has another shameful secret of her own to keep – she’s the only witch in her family who cannot do magic.