A NOVELLA by Maura McHugh
CATEGORY  Mystery & Magic
PUBLICATION DATE  June 2026
COVER ART  Lisa Laughy
PAGES  101

EDITION
Signed Hardcover, limited to 200 numbered copies signed by the author — ISBN 978-1-80394-573-6  [£20]

ABOUT THE BOOK

“Poignant, wry and compelling. McHugh’s tale of family crises and arcane mysteries brings the magic.” 

—M.R. Carey (Outlaw Planet, Infinity Gate)

“A colourful, mysterious Tarot-infused occult adventure, so vividly written that reading it was like having a weird and wonderful dream. It features two great characters: Aly, the “art-monster” single mother and her conflicted adult daughter Pallas—and now I wish for more stories about them.”

—Lisa Tuttle (The Mysteries, A Nest of Nightmares) 

“Beautifully realised characters, a dark and magical quest at its heart and prose that’s a sheer delight—Maura McHugh’s latest novella is a joy to read.”

—Alison Littlewood (Path of Needles, The Crow Garden)

Aly Wyrd, famous art provocateur and magician, is missing on the eve of the opening of her visionary project, the Path of Illumination. 
It falls to her estranged daughter, Pallas Trismegistus Morrigan Aylward, to navigate through dream, memory and arcane mystery to revisit her history 
with her mother in ’80s London and ’90s Ireland until Pallas catches up with present-day revelation by walking the road to enlightenment designed by her mother.   

AUTHOR BIO

Maura McHugh lives in the West of Ireland and due to her love of learning and passion for weird stories she has a MA in Irish Gothic and a MA in Screenwriting. She writes across a variety of media, including prose, theatre, film/TV, video games, non-fiction and comic books. Her story “Raptor” won the 2025 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction and her story “Bone Mother” was adapted into a stop-motion animated short film for the Canadian Film Board. Her original collection, The Boughs Withered (When I Told Them My Dreams), was nominated for a British Fantasy Award. She writes comics for American and European publishers, and her book about David Lynch's iconic film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, was nominated for a British Fantasy Award for Best Non-Fiction. Maura taught herself Tarot at the age of nineteen and continues to study esoteric subjects as well as science, mythology and history. She is most content during walks in her local forests: the older, the deeper, the better.