After moving to the tiny village of Biskopskulla, middle school student Clara Hutchins discovers that her family has a history in the region: one hundred forty years ago, one of her ancestors was hanged as a witch from the white oak tree on the edge of town. When Clara finds a mildewed diary in the basement, she’s able to read the rambling thoughts of her long-dead relative. But when the book’s predictions about Clara’s own life start coming true, she wonders if those nineteenth-century villagers had a point: maybe her great-great-great grandmother really did have unearthly abilities. Now, a break-in at the tomb of the town’s founder means a great evil has returned to Biskopskulla. Clara and her newest friends—two of the weirdest boys in school—must join forces to decipher the messages of a murdered witch and stop an unnatural catastrophe. But as they quest through historic cemeteries, backcountry libraries, and high-octane scholastic bowl tournaments, something sinister is lurking, watching, and waiting…

Praise for Maybe There Are Witches

“When books are really good we feel like they are speaking directly to us. The ingenious premise behind Jude Atwood’s sharp debut Maybe There Are Witches is to cast this sensation as an actual spell for young Clara. Her ordinariest of ordinary lives takes a twist toward the darkly fantastic as a newly-discovered book communicates truths about Clara’s present it couldn’t possibly know and launches her into a harrowing adventure she can’t possibly hope to survive. At a time where we all worry our kids might get lost in their phones, Maybe There Are Witches poses that they might, instead, get lost in their tomes, and aside from the impending cataclysmic doom they might find within, I can’t think of a better fate for young readers like Clara, or yours.”

-Steven T. Seagle, co-creator of BEN 10, BIG HERO 6, Camp Midnight

“Devotees of supernatural stories reeling from the end of Stranger Things reel no longer! Atwood delivers a twisting, turning tale of Midwestern macabre equal parts spine-tingling and laughter-inducing. Teens fighting the doldrums of what can often feel like a charmless world will particularly identify with curious and resilient heroine Clara Hutchins and the town of Biskopskulla that disguises the extraordinary beneath a thin veil of quaint normalcy. Every town is a permeable mirror, a portal of Past and Present, Good and Evil, and Atwood makes Biskopskulla spring to life with the unexpected menace of Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes but with a quirkiness and a beating heart all the author’s own.”

-J.R. Potter, author of Thomas Creeper and the Gloomsbury Secret

“When thirteen-year-old Clara moves with her mother into an old house in a small town, she soon discovers she is descended from a famous local witch, killed a hundred years ago. Soon she is joined by two new friends on a quest to save their town from an imminent supernatural disaster. Wonderfully plotted with head-spinning twists and turns, I was racing toward the end of this impossible-to-put-down adventure. By turns funny and smart and scary, this book is guaranteed to thrill and enthrall.”

-John Calvin Hughes, author of The Lost Gospel of Darnell Rabren