Mary Averling grew up across England and Canada, never far from the woods. She has degrees from the University of Victoria and Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. Since she can’t stay away from libraries for very long, she is currently working toward her PhD at Queen’s University, Kingston. She lives surrounded by all the magical, spooky, heartfelt books she can find. Her middle grade debut, The Curse of Eelgrass Bog, released from Penguin Young Readers (Razorbill) in January 2024. A second standalone novel, The Ghosts of Bitterfly Bay, is due to publish with PYR (Putnam) in February 2025. She is represented by Kelly Sonnack at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency.
Praise for The Curse of Eelgrass Bog
- JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD GOLD STANDARD SELECTION
- APPLE BOOKS MOST ANTICIPATED TITLE 2024
- AMAZON EDITORS’ PICK
- BOOKPAGE TOP 10 BOOKS OF JANUARY
- KOBO BEST CHILDREN’S BOOKS OF JANUARY
- BOOK RIOT BEST CHILDREN’S BOOKS OF JANUARY
“A deliciously offbeat magical adventure.” ~Kirkus
★ “Mary Averling bewitches with her debut middle grade novel, The Curse of Eelgrass Bog, which straddles the line between slimy and sweet, concocting a fantasy world that balances snarky demons, magical bogs, concerned witches and awe-inspiring serpents.” ~BookPage (starred review)
“The perfect combination of eccentric and eerie … with a voice that is as bold as it is vulnerable, as authentic as it is sassy.” ~The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
“A fetching, heart-stopping read with quirky characters, over-the-top depictions, a sinister setting, and the deep roots of family love.” ~School Library Journal
“Readers will enjoy excavating layers of history in this marvelous mystery with heaps of magic and heart.” ~Booklist
“[An] engrossing mystery… debut author Averling laces the overall setting with beguiling magical elements that make for an inventive adventure.” ~Publisher’s Weekly
About The Curse of Eelgrass Bog
Dark secrets and unnatural magic abound when a twelve-year-old girl ventures into a bog full of monsters to break a mysterious curse. Nothing about Kess Pedrock’s life is normal. Not her home (she lives in her family’s Unnatural History Museum), not her interests (hunting for megafauna fossils and skeletons), and not her best friend (a talking demon’s head in a jar named Shrunken Jim). But things get even stranger than usual when Kess meets Lilou Starling, the new girl in town. Lilou comes to Kess for help breaking a mysterious curse—and the only clue she has leads straight into the center of Eelgrass Bog. Everyone knows the bog is full of witches, demons, and possibly worse, but Kess and Lilou are determined not to let that stop them. As they investigate the mystery and uncover long-buried secrets, Kess begins to realize that the curse might hit closer to home than she’d ever expected. She’ll have to summon all her courage to find a way to break it before it’s too late.
About The Ghosts of Bitterfly Bay
A ghost must team up with the living girl she’s been haunting in order to defeat a monster out of her nightmares and save her little brother, from the author of The Curse of Eelgrass Bog. Maudie isn’t your typical twelve-year-old girl—she’s the ghost of one. Along with her best friend Kit and little brother Scratch, she haunts a cottage in the woods, doing her best to scare off the vacationers and forget her old life. But everything changes when Kit and Scratch go missing. Maudie knows something terrible must have happened, and she’s right: Longfingers—a monster from her own nightmares, with spidery fingers and needle-sharp teeth—has stolen her friends away. Longfingers makes Maudie a twisted deal: find the key to a door in a mysterious cabin, or she’ll never see her friends again. With nobody else to turn to, Maudie has to beg for help from Gianna, the living girl she’s been haunting. Together, the girls search for a way to thwart the monster and save Maudie’s friends. But Maudie’s keeping secrets about the cabin and her past. Unless she finds a way to finally face the truth, she may never be able to rescue her friends from Longfingers’s grasp.
Contact
Website: maryaverling.com
Email: maryvaverling@gmail.com
Socials: @/maryaverling on X/Twitter, Instagram, and Threads
Spooky Middle Grade 