The Ghost Garden

Emma Carroll

Reluctant or dyslexic readers will be delighted by a new story set in the weeks before the outbreak of WW1 by award-winning, historic fiction author Emma Carroll (Letters from the Lighthouse, Secrets of a Sun King).

When a series of coincidences occur between discoveries made in the garden of Longbarrow House and events that happen to people around her, Fran begins to feel that they must be connected. Forced to look after wheelchair-bound Leo, her sense of anxiety and fear for the future grows as he shares his theories of impending war and separation.

This is a strangely unsettling story with an atmosphere of mystery and magic reminiscent of The Secret Garden. The juxtaposition of a developing friendship between Leo and Fran and the pathos of impending war serves to engage and maintain the reader’s interest with its final lines being very pertinent in our own difficult times.

Published by Barrington Stoke

Reviewed by Rachel Bolton