This is my 8th book of the 20booksofsummer challenge hosted by Cathy at 746books.
Description taken from Netgalley.
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…
My Thoughts
This is my first ARC from Netgalley and I was so excited to read this. I’m so glad I got The Witching Stone as my first one.
This book follows the character Alfie after he slightly recklessly walks three times around a witches grave saying ‘I don’t believe in witches’ with each circle. He was warned a couple of times by Mia not to do it, but wanting to impress her, Alfie does it anyway. He has to live with the consequences of messing with a witch.
I really enjoyed the storyline. At first it started off quite creepy and even though I was reading it in broad daylight I got creeped out, however, as the story unfolded I steadily got less scared.
I really enjoyed how the story started with Alfie, who is the main protagonist, and his Dad moving to Lancashire from Bristol for his dad’s contracting job working in IT. The thing is we don’t find out Alfie’s dads name until quite far into the book.
I found Alfie’s character to be a little annoying though because of how much he would shout at the people who were trying to help him. I do understand why he was getting frustrated but there was no reason for him to get so angry so quickly.
My favourite characrter was Meg because she had such an interesting and difficult backstory which gives her a lot of depth. I did, however, find the conversations a bit difficult because of the dramatic emotional changes.
Mia was the other protagonist in the book. I liked Mia’s character becuase she seemed very down to earth and level headed about everything that was going on, and she was very grown up and resourceful for her age.
Together Mia and Alfie have to discover what Meg wants.
I would give this book a solid 3/5 because the storyline was really good and the concept was excellent, however, I found the execusion a bit lacking.
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