This book is an exquisite rarity: a faerie book that is at the same time marvellously visual and imaginative, but works equally well as a study of human trauma; a love story (of sorts); a family drama; a wholly engaging mystery. I found it in my to-read pile (which this year has been sadly neglected) and started it with no great expectation, although by the end of the third page I was not only hooked, but beginning to think that this might be the best book I'd read all year. Anyone who knows me knows how often I find myself disappointed by the payoff of a novel. This one maintained the tension right till the end - another rarity -never veering into over-exposition or self-indulgence. And the faeries are both nicely original and authentically folkloric: creepy, pagan, detailed, entrancing. I loved it, and I sense that I'll be following this author's future work with excitement and admiration. She's been places. She knows things. Follow her; you'll know them, too.
'By the end of the third page I was not only hooked, but beginning to think that this might be the best book I'd read all year.' Joanne Harris 'I wanted someone to know, you see. To know my truth, now that I am gone. How everything and none of it happened.' Everyone knew bestselling novelist Cassandra Tipp had twice got away with murder. Even her family were convinced of her guilt. So when she disappears, leaving only a long letter behind, they can but suspect that her conscience finally killed her. But the letter is not what anyone expected. It tells two chilling, darkly disturbing stories. One is a story of bloody nights and magical gifts, of children lost to the woods, of husbands made from twigs and leaves and feathers and bones . . . The other is the story of a little girl who was cruelly treated and grew up crooked in the shadows . . . But which story is true? And where is Cassie now?
