Castle Barebane

Joan Aiken writes superbly, with a force, a colour and strength of imagination that one encounters all too rarely today' - The TelegraphStrong and independent Valhalla Montgomery, a heroine straight out of a Henry James novel, abandons her New York career as a journalist to search for her half-brother in Joan Aiken's gothic novel, Castle Barebane. Wishing to escape from her pretentious New York fianc�, Valla is happy to have an excuse to travel to England, only to discover that her half-brother and his wife have disappeared from their London home - leaving their young two children all alone. Finding Victorian London a gloomy and sinister place, haunted by a series of Ripper style murders, Valla takes the children up to Scotland to a bleak family property known as Castle Barebane. In this Gothic ruin, perched on the edge of a cliff, the mystery surrounding her missing brother only gets darker, and more terrifying . . . Castle Barebane is an unforgettable tale of love, loss, and human nature is brought to life by Joan Aiken's vivid story-telling and gripping plot. For fans of gothic mystery, and readers of Virginia Andrews or Nicola Cornick.