Author:Keith Topping,Martin Day

The village was cursed centuries ago, but only now is the alien evil beginning to revive ...
The children of Hexen Bridge are gifted and clever, but insanity and murder follow in their wake. The Doctor has a special interest in the village, but on his return to England in the early twenty-first century events seem to be escalating out of control.
Kidnapped and taken to Liverpool, the Doctor realises that developments in Hexen Bridge have horrifying repercussions for the rest of the country. Ace is left in the village, where small-minded prejudices and unsettled scores are flaring into violence.
As scarecrows fashioned from the bodies of the recent and ancient dead stalk the country lanes around Hexen Bridge, a sinister dark stain is spreading over the surrounding fields. And as the fierce evil grows ever stronger, can the Doctor and Ace prevent it from engulfing the entire world?
Featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace, this adventure takes place between the TV stories The Curse of Fenric and Survival.
Packs a real emotional punch...Pears, who could not write an ugly sentence if he tried ... His portrait of a family at a time of change is also a lament for a country which is losing its environmental way.
—— Mail on SundayBeautifully understated...A low-key family gathering in the Welsh Marches blossoms into an elegiac meditation on our relationship with the land we inhabit.
—— David Robson , Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Year'Delightful ... Pears has terrific fun with his cast and is highly skilled at drawing out foibles and grudges
—— James Urquhart , IndependentVery sympathetic, intelligent and moving ... Pears's depiction of enduring married love is beautifully done ... Pears is so adept at the illuminating detail, writes so beautifully of the pleasures of life ... it is a warm and affirmative novel, one which offers incidental joys on every page. It is perhaps the finest book he has written yet.
—— Allan Massie , The ScotsmanA thorough examination of nostalgia itself.
—— Daily MailA wry and graceful book... Unfailingly sharp and often very funny
—— Sunday TimesA wonderful dark comic first novel
—— Alice Hoffman






