I don’t believe in absolute good and absolute evil, and similarly, I don’t believe in a total villain, because in most cases, villains are people, and people are complex, a product of their culture and their wants and fears, strengths and weaknesses. Did you intend to write a book without a singular evil character? What effect do you think that has on the story?Ĭlassically, fairy tales have a very clear source of good, and a very clear source of evil. There is no one cut-and-dried villain in The Near Witch instead, danger comes from the townspeople’s fear, anger and confusion. I knew they’d be the perfect place for Near. They are magical, in the old way, an elemental way, all fog and wind and wild earth. The moors were a perfect place to start because they are vast and old and have at once so much character and yet when you’re on them, it’s easy to forget the year, the century. More than that, I wanted to make the setting its own character, while still maintaining a timeless quality. That absence of place helped make the stories timeless, but when I decided to try my hand at one, I wanted to have a true setting. I’ve always loved fairy tales, but the setting in many of my favorites was barely sketched out, little more than a strange gray space in which the characters moved. What drew you to a ghost story set in the moors? Lexi, with the help of the stranger, Cole, goes in search of the truth and the missing children, only to find that some legends have yet to be put to rest.

Almost simultaneously, the children of Near begin to go missing, plucked from their beds without a trace. Lexi goes in search of the stranger, only to find a mysterious boy with a singed cloak and eyes the color of coal. It is a lonely place where strangers never venture-until one night, someone is spotted disappearing into the shadows. Lexi Harris lives in the village of Near, a place where the wind seems to speak and children are told the story of the Near Witch, who died long ago in the moors. In The Near Witch, the debut YA novel by Victoria Schwab, ancient ghost stories are the same as truth. The creepiest and oldest of legends have a way of prickling the spine and turning dark nights into the haunted unknown.

The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab