A complex multi-layered mystery unfolds around Eliot, a 12-year-old American boy who is grieving for his mother’s death and is sent to stay with his English cousins.

More suffering is in store for Eliot- he is possessed by the girl who was once held captive in his room, harrassed by the sinister Miss Greymark, and haunted by the First World War.

Jenny Nimmo knows when to explain and when to stay silent. She withholds her revelations tantalisingly and always respects her reader, finding as much to wonder at in the seemingly simple as the children she writes for.

Unearthing the secrets that are buried in the past and harboured by families has become her trademark since Snow Spider, and she pacifies the ghosts she raises with assured sensitivity.