Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire

Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire is a young adult (YA) fantasy novel by debut author Don Martin. Originally published in 2025 by Page Street YA, the novel is set in the fictional Appalachian town of Foxfire. Ever since coal miners exhausted the Foxfire region’s coal mine, the town has struggled to survive. Desperate for resources, the townspeople start making bargains with a traveling salesman named Earl, who ultimately manipulates and exploits them. They are caught under Earl’s thumb until Verity Vox, a witch in training, arrives on her broomstick. Verity does everything in her power to befriend the Foxfire residents while staving off Earl. Her challenges throughout the novel fuel her self-discovery journey. Written from the third-person point of view, the novel explores themes including the Use of Power for Good Versus Evil, Self-Exploration amid a Small-Town Community, and Navigating Community Hurt, Need, and Healing.

This guide refers to the 2025 Page Street YA hardback edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The source material and guide include depictions of graphic violence, self-harm, child death, illness, antigay bias, and death.

Plot Summary

Verity Vox is a witch-in-training in search of her next assignment. Verity left her coven at 13 and has been out in the world developing her skills ever since. Each year, she relocates to a new town, where she helps the residents however she can. When the year ends, the universe gives her a sign that directs her to her next assignment.

This year, Verity receives a sign in the form of an inscribed leaf. The leaf, inscribed anonymously, informs Verity that someone is under the pull of a powerful curse and needs her help getting free. Verity mounts her broomstick with her witch’s companion (or familiar), Jack, and heads out in search of the letter-writer. She follows the leaf until she comes to a mountain, traverses a forest, and arrives in a valley, where the desolate town of Foxfire is located.

Verity wanders through the town’s main street until she comes to Green’s General Goods, where she meets Gillian (Gilly) Green. Verity announces that she is a witch-in-training, there to rescue the town from the curse. A skeptical Gilly informs Verity that Foxfire doesn’t trust witches and doesn’t need her help. However, when Verity offers to fix Gilly’s precious broken gramophone for free, Gilly starts to open up to Verity. Finally, Gilly admits that Foxfire just might need her after all.

Some time ago, a traveling salesman came to the Appalachian town, selling fine things for cheap prices. Because Foxfire had been depressed since the local mine went out, they saw Earl as their savior. Over time, however, Earl started to take advantage of them, forcing them to make bargains they could never repay, like trading their limbs for a loaf of bread. 

One year, Earl told a frantic father he would heal his sick daughter. When he failed to do so and the girl died, the man drove Earl out of town. Earl has been living on the mountain ever since. He has destroyed the one bridge in and out of Foxfire and has been stealing energy from the mountain to harm the residents. Because the townspeople can’t escape, they go to Earl to make bargains to get food or resources.

Gilly asserts that they need help breaking Earl’s curse, but no one has trusted magic or witches since he came around. Verity decides that she will fix the Foxfire people’s broken belongings—ruined by the curse—to win their trust. Gilly supports the plan and invites Verity to stay with her.

Over time, Foxfire starts to put their faith in Verity. She heals their sick animals, regrows their gardens, and returns their broken objects. Then one day, Verity learns that a local girl named Tacita Tarry went missing weeks ago, and her mother, Theresa Tarry, wants her back. She insists that if Verity really is a good witch, she will go to the mountain and rescue her daughter.

Verity ventures to the mountain and finds Tacita. Tacita has run away from home because she feels trapped in Foxfire and doesn’t want to marry the local dairy farmer, Del Miller. She dreams of making a life for herself in some faraway town. She admits that she gave Earl her heart in exchange for this dream, but he only locked her in a chimney. When Earl appears, Verity turns Tacita into a goose, and they fly back to Foxfire.

After Verity and Tacita’s return, all of Verity’s spells start to reverse. The residents begin to think that she has cursed them, too, and they withhold their trust once more. Meanwhile, Verity schemes with Gilly and Tacita, desperate to defeat Earl. Verity blames herself for Foxfire’s circumstances and ventures back to the mountain to confront Earl once more. She finds him near the mine—he plans to harness divine power from the mine, if Verity will help him move the stones and let him in. She agrees, so long as he forgets the bargains he made with the Foxfire people. He agrees and disappears into the mine.

Not long afterward, Verity returns to Foxfire once more. Tacita falls ill from a wound Earl gave her when he cut out her heart. Del’s mother Mae Miller accuses Verity of being careless when she sent Earl down to the mine without first recovering Tacita’s heart.

Filled with remorse, Verity returns to the mountain again after Earl emerges from the mine. During their epic fantastical battle, Verity decides to trade some of her power in exchange for Foxfire’s safety.

Back in Foxfire, Verity struggles to orient to life without all of her magical powers. She also tries to regain the town’s trust. One day, Tacita finds a magical bird called a nightjar at the forest’s edge and brings it to Verity as a clue to how to defeat Earl. Verity soon discovers that the forest birds are, in fact, housing the trapped spirits of Earl’s victims. With Tacita and Jack’s help, she confronts the mystical mountain for help. The mountain gives Verity some of its power to help the nightjar spirits pass to the other side. When she frees these souls, Earl weakens and disappears forever.

Verity packs up and waits for a sign of where to go next. Tacita begs her not to go, insisting that she must have finished her training by now. Verity realizes she might be right, and the two decide to make a life together somewhere beyond Foxfire.