The Dew of Their Youth

In a remote Scottish valley, sixteen-year-old Duncan MacAlpine stands at the threshold between boyhood and everything that comes after. Working at his father's academy, he watches his classmates with new eyes, particularly the girls who seem to inhabit a world he has yet to enter. But it is the abandoned House of Marnhoul that truly haunts the village's imagination, a crumbling estate where locals claim to see lights in empty windows and hear sounds that have no source. When curiosity compels Duncan and his friends to investigate, he discovers that confronting fears reveals more about the heart than any ghost story could. S. R. Crockett captures that precise moment when life seems both infinitely promising and vaguely threatening, weaving Scottish folklore through a tender story of first love and the courage required to become oneself.