A brilliantly written ghost story, subtle yet utterly absorbing. Westall's prose is superbly evocative and the story continues to haunt you long after the book is closed.
"If you harm this house, it will kill you"
The protagonist of the story is twelve-year-old Maggi. Since the death of her mother two years earlier, Maggi has had to take care of her demanding twin brothers while her father, devastated by his grief, drifts listlessly through life. Then a letter arrives asking Dad to oversee the renovation of a crumbling stately home in Cheshire.
When they first move to the house it seems a wonderful new start for them all. The job renews Dad's enthusiasm for life, the twins revel in their new surroundings and Miss MacFarlane, the house's eccentric owner, is content in the family's company.
But Maggi has noticed some unsettling things about the old house - voices emanating from empty rooms - an unknown figure at a window. She gradually comes to realise that the house wields a dark and terrifying power of its own, luring people in to help protect and preserve it, people like Dad, but harming anyone who does it damage. If any of them do something to injure the house even accidentally then their lives will be in danger. In fear Maggi tries to get her family away but the house isn't willing to let them go.
An unusual and unsettling ghost story from a multi-award-winning author.
