Pages:
320
Publisher:
Faber
Release
Date: 7th
July 2016
Edition:
UK paperback,
review copy
Other
Titles by this Author: Frost Hollow Hall, The Girl Who
Walked on Air, In Darkling Wood, The
Snow Sister
The
year of 1816 felt extraordinary, and all because of a strange sort of star in
the sky…
Lake
Geneva, Switzerland
Early
one summer’s morning, a servant boy named Felix delivers an invitation.
Tonight, at the mysterious Villa Diodati, there will be ghost stories that
promise to ‘freeze the blood’.
As
darkness falls, the guests arrive. The storytelling begins. Then comes an
unexpected knock at the door. Felix discovers a girl on the doorstep. She's
travelled a long way to tell her tale, and now he must listen.
But
be warned: hers is no ordinary ghost story. Sometimes the truth is far more
terrifying.
After reading Emma Carroll’s The Snow Sister last year I knew that I needed
to read her full length novels – and I thoroughly enjoyed Strange Star.
I’m a huge fan of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley and basically
just everything about the Romantics so I was beside myself when I learned about
the premise and inspiration for this book. It was super cool to meet Mary,
Percy, Polidori and Byron – and I desperately wish that I could have been in
that room with them on that famous night. Even in Carroll’s rather creepy
version!
Soon after meeting the Romantics
at Lake Geneva we move to the small English village of Sweepfield where a
mysterious scientist has moved to town. The cold, snowy Regency setting was
brimming with atmosphere and the mysteries Lizzie and Peg uncovered and the
adventures they fell into were genuinely chilling and completely wonderful. I
kind of wish I'd saved Strange Star for
a cold and gloomy evening! This is definitely one to put on your Halloween
reading list.
Strange
Star is a
wonderfully vivid and perfectly creepy homage to the masterpiece that is Frankenstein and I thoroughly enjoyed
it. I really hope this gets younger readers intrigued enough to take the plunge
into Shelley’s novel.
Thanks to Faber for the review
copy.
Sophie
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