Willow the Vampire & the Sacred Grove

Eleven-year-old Willow Band lives with her parents in a remote cottage at the edge of the picturesque village Stinkforth-upon-Avon. The villagers have no idea there's a family of vampires in their midst. Insurance salesmen, bankers and visiting vicars beware...or you'll end up on the Band's dinner table!Willow loves poetry, ballet and animals...but she doesn't like eating leathery postman, wrinkly non-organic dancers or her friendly neighbour Mr. Edwards, who has long been on her mother's list of Sunday lunch ingredients.Having fled London for the safety of the Stinkforthshire countryside, Willow and her parents try to blend into the rural community of humans without arousing their suspicions...although mysterious disappearances of staff from the local research facility are causing a bit of a stink...Willow is an unusual vampire: she was born eleven years ago in a disgustingly human way that baffled even the wise old heads of the Vampire Council - how was this possible, when age-old vampire tradition demands blood sacrifice at full moon for baby-vampires to enter the world?She finds herself at odds with both her human and her vampire world. Why exactly did her Great Uncle call her a Child of Light? What will her very human friend Darren say, when he finds out she's a blood-sucking fiend?Just when Willow starts to settle into her new life at Stinkforth's School for the Gifted, she discovers her mother has a dangerous secret that puts the whole family at risk, plunging Willow and her friends into a dark mystery that may well spell the end of the world as we know it.As she battles with villainous relatives, greedy headmasters, vicious bat-monsters, disgruntled ex-prison warders, miffed pagan gods, not to mention her arch rival Felicity Henderson, who'd stop at nothing to beat Willow in this year's poetry competition, Willow discovers there's more to her than just fangs and an eye for a good sonnet.Author Maria Thermann hopes you will enjoy her stories set in the fictional county of Stinkforthshire, England - an entirely slayer-free zone. The adventures of Willow the Vampire and the Sacred Grove are aimed at children aged 10 - 12...and anyone who enjoys black humour and likes vampires that are feisty!