Stephen Varley is back - but so are the witches! Novelist Stephen Varley receives a letter out-of-the-blue from his Great Aunt Amelia, who lives in the atmospheric south-east Essex village of Cannow's End. Amelia tells Stephen that she has been left a dilapidated old farmhouse in the village in the will of her old friend Winifred Weston. Amelia is too old and frail to clear out and patch up the building on her own, so she asks Stephen and his wife Sophie to help her with the task. Stephen, who is currently living in Northumberland, is reluctant to return to Cannow's End after a previous encounter with witchcraft there, but Sophie comes from the nearby town of Thamesmouth and she persuades him to go back, so that she can also visit her parents. Unbeknownst to any of them, the old farmhouse holds many secrets and what begins as a job of clearing out the building and carrying out routine repairs soon evolves into a magical adventure involving family history, feuds, witches, smugglers and a few frights and scares along the way!