A gripping psychological thriller from the author of the bestselling WAYS TO LIVE FOREVER. Eleven-year-old Olivia has been in care since she was five, and is just beginning her sixteenth placement. Her new home is a secluded farmhouse, centuries old, where she slowly bonds with her foster family. But the house holds dark secrets. Olivia discovers that it was once a notorious baby farm, where unwanted children were left to die. She becomes convinced that the place is haunted. She is desperate to save her new family from the ghosts. The danger is real - but does it come from the twisted mind of a very disturbed child? A powerful and thrilling story from one of today's most exciting young writers.
The following review was written by Carla McGuigan.
This is the first time I've read a novel by Sally Nicholas.
Eleven-year-old Olivia Brown has been in care since she was five. She has just been asked to leave her 18th placement. Olivia’s new home is a farmhouse, centuries old which used to belong to Amelia Dyer who was a baby farmer. Dyer was hanged for murdering her charges.
Slowly Olivia starts to bond with her new family, but soon Olivia starts to hear a baby crying at night and she knows it’s not Massiy, Grace’s baby. Olivia soon starts to panic as she believes the house is haunted. She asks her foster dad Jim to read to her at night, but as soon as Jim leaves the ghostly Amelia arrives.
Can Olivia save herself from Amelia before it’s too late? There are short chapters and it is a very good read.
I recommend this novel for both girls and boys aged 13 and up.
Author
About Sally Nicholls
Sally Nicholls was born in Stockton-on-Tees, just after midnight, in a thunderstorm. Her father died when she was two and she and her brother Ian were brought up by her mother. She always wanted to write - when people asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, 'I used to say "I'm going to be a writer" - very definite'.
After school she worked in a Red Cross Hospital in Japan, travelled around Australia and New Zealand and returned to do a degree in Philosophy and Literature at Warwick.
Her first book Ways to Live Forever was a multiple prize winner: Winner of the Glen Dimplex Prize for New Writers 2008. Winner of Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize 2008. Winner of Luchs Prize (Germany) for best children’s book published in Germany in the last year. Longlisted for Branford Boase Award 2009.
She now lives in a little flat in London and has a part-time job as an administrator for a charity called Effective Intervention. The rest of her time is spent writing stories and trying to believe her luck.
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