But the sight also places Rosie, and others, in danger of that witch and her emissaries. Helping to locate an old volume, The Witch Hunter’s Guide to the Universe, the ghosts disclose the existence of 13 witches who conjure the world’s evil, Rosie’s mother’s past as the last known witch hunter, and the root of Rosie’s mother’s neglect in the covetous Memory Thief’s curse. When her best friend, assertive and athletic Germ, suggests that the new sixth graders abandon childish things, Rosie burns her stories, inadvertently unlocking a special sight that reveals the ghosts-some friendly, some menacing-coexisting in her home. With the help of her best friend, Germ, and the mysterious ghost boy Finch, Rosie sets off on a journey that entangles her in a battle between the light of the moon and the darkness of witches that has raged since the world began.In this heavily allusive fantasy set in coastal Maine, narrator Rosie, an avid fantasy writer, lives alone with her neglectful mother, leaving herself parental notes (“You look taller today, sweetie”). To preserve her family legacy and fight for her mother’s memories, Rosie must face two of the most sinister witches of all: Time and Forgetting. Rosie discovers her mother was once a renowned witch hunter, responsible for foiling the thirteen witches responsible for all the evil in the world. Suddenly, a new part of the world has opened to her-the ghosts that haunt her house, the trees that whisper and gossip in her yard, balloons that escape on purpose, and more.īut magic is not always wondrous, and the moths that visit Rosie’s mother are part of a curse. Rosie was never supposed to see magic like this, but once she has, she can never un-see it.

One night, Rosie sees moths gathering by moonlight to perch on her mother’s heart while she sleeps. And all of her life, Rosie has been watching her mother forget-her memory dwindling until she doesn’t even remember Rosie or that she ever loved her at all. Full of magic and bittersweet truths, this tale is perfect for fans of The Girl Who Drank the Moon.Īll of Rosie’s life, she and her mom have lived in a windy cliff-top house on the coast of Maine.

From acclaimed and New York Times bestselling author Jodi Lynn Anderson comes the fantastical and heartfelt first installment in a new trilogy about the thirteen witches who are responsible for all the evil in the world-and the girl who sets out to defeat them.

Thirteen witches the memory thief