posted on 31 Dec 2020

The Ghost Garden by Emma Carroll

It’s the summer of 1914 and the country teeters on the brink of war – although the children of Long Barrow House don’t know at this point what sort of cataclysm lies ahead. However, Fran, digging in the garden her father maintains so diligently, makes an unsettling find – a large bone – that she splinters with her spade. She can’t explain why but the find unsettles her and the sense of disquiet increases when one of the children of the house, Leo, suffers a compound fracture of his leg. There can’t be any connection between the two events, can there?

When the garden surrenders another buried artefact – a small porcelain baby doll called a Frozen Charlotte – and Fran’s mother suddenly announces that she is pregnant, events start to look like something more than mere coincidence. Is the garden trying to tell them something about the future and what could it be?

Fran has never really liked the children from the big house but when she is recruited to keep Leo company and push him around the grounds, she reluctantly knuckles down to her task. At first she finds Leo a bit of a trial because he seems to be obsessed with the foolish idea that Europe is heading towards war and insists on telling her his theories. But, to her surprise a bond starts to grow between them and the task of keeping him company starts to be something she actually looks forward to.

When Leo tells Fran that the grounds of the house are reputed to also be the location of an ancient burial mound, the two children decide they need to do some detective work and find where it might be. When the mound is discovered and Fran uncovers a hidden entrance and the skeleton of a dead warrior, it triggers more disturbing auguries of the future – ones that are a spectral echo of a disturbing and tragic future. Maybe Leo’s theories of war are not so crazy after all.

This this Emma Carroll’s debut novel for Barrington Stoke and adds another title to her current list of award-winning historical fiction. The writing is atmospheric and ideally paced for the publishers ‘super readable’ series and the frisson of the supernatural is nicely judged – reminding me in parts of the work of the great Alan Garner.

The book is illustrated by Kaja Kajfez and will be available from 7th January 2021. You can order it from your local independent bookshop or directly from Barrington Stoke.

 

Terry Potter

January 2021