Published in 2025
302 pages
Vanessa F. Penney was born in northern Newfoundland and raised in rural Nova Scotia. The coal-black ocean depths and bone-buried shorelines of the East Coast inspire her writing. Vanessa lives in Dartmouth, NS. This is her first novel.
What is this book about?
A feminist gothic tale with a tough-as-nails female protagonist who must find her elderly aunt, long suspected of being a witch.
Madeline is missing. Ordered to find her, Madeline’s estranged niece Fade must return to the lonely forest of Willow Sound, Nova Scotia. There, Fade discovers her aunt’s once-cozy cottage empty and rotting. The ominous smell of something burnt hangs in the air.
In her search for answers, Fade clashes with the people of Grand Tea, a nearby village struggling under the shadow of a massive, looming rock that could tip and crush them all at any time. For generations, they’ve invented bizarre lore about Madeline, calling her a witch and blaming her for their misfortunes. They’ve had more misfortunes than ever lately. And a hurricane is coming.
Inspired by real East Coast traditions and witch lore, The Witch of Willow Sound is a modern gothic tale that explores family lost and found and throws firelight on dark truths about what societies do with the people, and the past, they don’t want.
