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Moonstone

By Laura Purcell

From award-winning bestseller Laura Purcell comes her YA debut, MOONSTONE.

Don’t misbehave. Beware the moon. And never go out after dark . . .

Following a scandal at the Vauxhall pleasure gardens, Camille is sent to the woods to live with her reclusive godmother and her strange daughter, Lucy. Cast out from polite society, she must learn to live by her godmother’s strict rules.

Camille has never met anyone quite like Lucy before, and as they grow closer and cross forbidden boundaries, strange things begin to happen. Mysterious deaths, claw marks raking the doors, and the nights are pierced by the howls of a creature that sounds almost . . . otherworldly.

Should Camille be more afraid of what’s hiding in the woods – or her own heart?

From the award-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Silent Companions, Moonstone is a haunting gothic romance with real bite.

Format: Trade Paperback
Release Date: 23 May 2024
Pages: 288
ISBN: 978-0-00-856283-0
Price: £13.99 (Export Price) , £13.99, €None
Laura Purcell is a former bookseller living in Colchester, Essex with her husband and pet guinea pigs. She is the author of six novels, among them Gothic novel The Silent Companions, which was a Radio 2 and Zoe Ball ITV Book Club pick and The Shape of Darkness, winner of the inaugural Fingerprint Award for Historical Crime Book of the Year. Her short story The Chillingham Chair was included in The Haunting Season anthology, which was an instant Sunday Times bestseller. She also wrote Roanoake Falls, a dramatic podcast for Realm, working with John Carpenter and Sandy King Carpenter.

Praise for Laura Purcell -

PRAISE FOR THE SILENT COMPANIONS -

Ghost stories are for Christmas. Some recent ones haven’t quite got it right but this is terrific. Perfect setting, great build-up, chilling. What more could you want?― Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black -

Layering on the dark and creepy, this intriguingly plotted novel is the full-blown Gothic, maintaining throughout an unsettling claustrophobic atmosphere mixed with some unusual historical detail― Daily Mail -

A deliciously creepy ghost story― Sunday Express -

A perfect read for a winter night. Intriguing, nuanced and genuinely eerie― Guardian -

A creepy, unsettling tale that I had to finish reading in broad daylight― Stylist, ‘Must-Read Books’ -

A sinister slice of Victorian gothic… creepy and page-turning― The Times -

Really tense and unnerving, it still won’t let me go― Woman & Home -

A true page-turner…neatly crafted and compelling…with a spine-tingling revelation every few pages― Times Literary Supplement -

Irresistibly creepy, this romps along, Purcell turning her screws with skill. It’s what crumpets and dismal afternoons were made for― Glamour -

A superbly atmospheric, tense novel full of creeping dread. I could only read it during daylight hours!― Red -