THE DEVIL’S TOENAIL

Stevie’s friends want him to set fire to something to prove his allegiance to their gang, but Stevie’s afraid of fire. Terribly burned in a bullying incident in his last school, he’s determined not to become a whipping boy for Daniel, the latest in a long line of power-hungry bullies. Everything begins to shift when he finds a mysterious stone on the beach while on holiday with his family. The stone seems to have some dark power, the power to harness all of Stevie’s anger and hatred towards a dangerous purpose. Feeding off the energy it seems to give him, Stevie tries his hand at vandalism and even begins to conquer his fear of fire, but it’s his six-year-old sister (despite herself) who ultimately makes him break free from his cycle of pain. Accessing the darker side of human nature, this powerful tale is both real and thought-provoking. Purposeful—as well as powerful. (Fiction. 12-14)