Overview

"When Ella is kidnapped, her family don't realize just what a nightmare they are entering. Because the kidnapper has more than just money on his mind - and as his plans unfold, all the members of the family are forced to confront their deepest, darkest secrets. This is a major new novel from the author of the Carnegie medal-winning ""River Boy"". * Prize-winning author: Tim Bowler has won the Carnegie Medal, the Angus Book Prize (twice), and the Lancashire Children's Book Award. * A tightly-plotted, exciting thriller, with a real sense of tension and danger. * Brilliantly-handled themes of betrayal, trust, and revenge. * Wonderful fresh cover design - being issued simultaneously with new matching editions of ""River Boy"" and ""Shadows"". * Author was born and brought up in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, and now lives in Totnes, Devon."

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9780192718808

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Reviews

Fin is devastated by guilt when his sister, Ella, is kidnapped, snatched away from the house in the middle of a storm. But soon his guilt is replaced by a fierce determination to find his sister. A strong novel by a Carnegie Medal winning-author.

From the chilling opening, when Emma, 13, is kidnapped, to the stormy conclusion, this ominous story will keep readers guessing. Her kidnapping stuns and bewilders Emma's family; her 15-year-old brother Fin is guilt-ridden because he wasn't at home and her three-year-old brother Sammy compulsively talks to invisible beings. Effectively told from the viewpoints of Emma, Fin, and Sammy, the motive of the teen kidnapper is slowly entwined with a dark family secret. Desperate to find Emma, Fin uses a dowsing book to create a pendulum with Emma's gold ring and a strand of her gold hair that he holds over maps to locate her. Oddly, the pendulum only responds to Sammy's touch, pointing to the deserted lighthouse on the verge of collapsing into the sea. Tension builds dramatically as the theme of climatic storms parallels the storms brewing within the family. Spanning just four days, the drama is packed with suspense elements: a spooky lighthouse, a child with ESP, ghosts, infidelity, blackmail, cracks in the family cement-Bowler has skillfully crafted them into a compelling story. (Fiction. 12-16) (Kirkus Reviews)

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