Summer in Lower Thistlewick has never been quite like this. The film crew for Shadowlands—Dimity Armstrong’s much-loved fantasy series—arrives in July, bringing cameras, cables, a great deal of excitement and rather more interest in the village’s hanging baskets than anyone expected. Lower Thistlewick takes it all in its stride. Mostly. Alf Cooper, already cast as the innkeeper in the production, soon discovers that pretending to run an inn while actually running one is more complicated than it sounds. So he sends for his nephew, Harvey. Harvey Cooper arrives on a Tuesday with two bags, no explanation and an easy way with people that makes him seem as though he has always belonged behind the bar at the Swan. He doesn’t say what he has left behind, and Alf doesn’t ask. Lower Thistlewick has always been good at knowing when to leave a person alone. Meanwhile, Dimity is spending long hours at Pippin’s Nook with Rowan, the production’s scriptwriter. The work is entirely necessary, entirely professional—and beginning to trouble Vivian far more than she wants to admit. At the bookshop, Joanna and Hugh are planning their September wedding. And Charlotte, watching the village fill with strangers, begins to suspect that the biggest change of the summer may have nothing to do with Shadowlands at all. It may have something to do with Harvey. Lower Thistlewick has always had a way of giving people what they need, even when they haven’t quite worked out what that is themselves. This summer, the village has its work cut out. Harvest Magic is the eighth novel in The Enchanted Village series.
