In the follow up to the thriller ‘Wickedness’, modern-day teen Claire and her seventeenth century counterpart Margrat discover it is impossible to escape the clutches of the sinister Doctor, who breaks the boundaries of time and mortality to pursue them both. Both girls must ask the question…who can you trust when wickedness returns?

Excerpts from Deceit . . .

“Nah,” he (Silas) snarls and his spit flecks my face, “he’s finished that one. He won’t live. He’s knocking at Death’s door and will soon be let in.” He takes out a knife and holds it against Jeanne’s cheek. I scream and grab the blade in my hand and try to push it away. I can see blood, but strangely I feel no pain at all. Then just as I think he will pull the knife from out of my hand, slicing it in two, a look of surprise crosses his face and his grip on the knife handle weakens. He topples sideways onto the ground. Martha is on her feet and has plunged her knife into his back and with great accuracy. This time the knife wound is fatal. Martha looks about her hurriedly, but in the commotion no one has noticed Silas fall. She pulls out the knife carefully and wipes it clean on Silas’s jerkin. Then together we drag his body into the nearest alleyway and run.
( Margrat, chapter 7)

“It wasn’t the first time it had happened. Or the most scary. There’d been a science lesson at school where Claire and her group had been about to dissect a dead locust. Claire had been steeling herself to press the scalpel down onto the locust’s thorax and was leaning over it, breathing hard, when the same sensation had popped unbidden into her head again, along with the words of the 21st spell. The locust’s legs had started to wave in the air. Then, to her horror, the locust had flipped over, scuttled across the bench and down onto the floor. She’d dropped the scalpel and screamed.”
Claire, Chapter 1

“She ran into the café, took only a second telling Joe to get apple juice…slipped her hand into his and reached up in tiptoe to kiss him. Then she was racing back outside…a smile for Matthew already forming…and the pushchair was there…but Matthew was nowhere to be seen. Her throat tightened in terror and her heart was hammering. She could hear the rush and roar of pumping blood filling up her head. Her hands were sweaty. The ring felt burning hot now and was making her finger throb. She turned this way and that. Scanned the table…started shouting “Matthew, Matthew.” Ran frantically around the tables asking people, “Have you seen a little boy? Dark curly hair. Dark eyes.” People shaking their heads. Murmurs of sympathy. But no one helping. No one doing anything. Most just turning away and drinking coffee and reaching out to their children and pulling them in closer.”
Claire, Chapter 1