9781785659959. New condition. Trade paperback. Language: English. Pages: 432. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 432 p. From the critically acclaimed author of Hekla's Children comes a dark and haunting tale of our world and the next. After a brutal break-in leaves her family traumatised, Trish Feenan jumps at the chance of a fresh start in a charming historic community. But in the back garden of her new cottage sits an unsettling reminder of past wrongs: a standing stone, once one of the markers that kept plague sufferers outside the village bounds, its `powers' renewed every year in a ritual that seems to be more than just local oddity. As the Feenans settle in, they experience unexplained accidents, accompanied by sightings of a girl who vanishes into thin air. Soon, it becomes obvious that there is a reason traditions must not slip, and that all acts of betrayal, even those committed centuries ago, have consequences...
A family’s fresh start in a quaint British village turns into a waking, ghost-ridden nightmare in this chilling folk horror story about tradition, evil, and the Great Plague.
Fleeing from a traumatic break-in, Londoners Paul and Tricia Feenan sell up to escape to the isolated Holiwell village where Tricia has inherited a property. Scattered throughout the settlement are centuries-old stones used during the Great Plague as boundary markers. No plague-sufferer was permitted to pass them and enter the village. The plague diminished, and the village survived unscathed . . .
Since then, the village trustees have insisted on an annual ancient ceremony to renew the village boundaries. But then a misguided act by the Feenans’ son sends the village into a frenzy, reminding everyone that there’s a reason traditions have been stuck to so rigidly—and that all acts of betrayal, even those committed centuries ago, have dire consequences.
