The Witchwood Knot

Winifred Hall works as a governess at Witchwood Manor in a magical version of Victorian England. She knows a con when she sees one, and she sees one the morning her spoiled young charge turns overnight into a perfectly behaved block of wood. The real boy, heir to the manor, has been taken by the Fair Folk.

Winnie has no help to count on. The lord of the house is the only man in England who does not believe in faeries, so the rescue falls to her alone. The manor is also larger than anyone living in it realises, and the other side of the house is full of otherworldly dangers.

As she goes deeper into that hidden half, Winnie enlists the faerie butler, Mr Quincy. He is dark, charming and dubious, and he keeps several awful secrets behind his smile. She means to reach the centre of the Witchwood Knot by wit and cleverness, but her usual tricks start to fail, and she must decide whom to trust.

This is a gothic fantasy romance and a dark faerie tale, with an eerie haunted-house setting and a sharp, resourceful heroine at its centre. It returns to the world of Half a Soul, the author's earlier novel. The mood is shadowy and dangerous, with a romantic thread running through the menace.