Wayward Girls

A gripping, unsettling debut novel about two sisters and a dangerous game that becomes all too real. Perfect for fans of The Girl in the Walls and The Little Stranger.The haunting began quietly. The girls heard it first . . .THEN1976. Loo and her sister Bee live in a run-down cottage in the middle of nowhere, with their artistic parents and wild siblings. Their mother, Cathy, had hoped to escape to a simpler life; instead the family find themselves isolated and shunned by their neighbours. At the height of the stifling summer, unexplained noises and occurences in the house begin to disturb the family, until they intrude on every waking moment . . .NOWLoo, now Lucy, is called back to her childhood home. A group of strangers are looking to discover the truth about the house and the people who lived there.But is Lucy ready to confront what really happened all those years ago?'A chilling debut' Daily Express'Wonderfully creepy' I newspaper'A near-perfect ghost story' The Guardian'Holds a very unsettling power indeed' Heat magazine'Eerie and atmospheric' Woman'Brilliant . . . has all the makings of a spooky classic' My Weekly'A chillingly claustrophobic read in which the secrets of the past seep into the present' Sunday Express'Gripping, compelling and beautifully accomplished' Jess Kidd, author of Things in Jars'Extraordinary. Amanda Mason is the master of suspense' Deborah O'Connor

With echoes of The Enfield Haunting, a sustained sense of unease permeates this evocative novel, which holds a very unsettling power indeed., A chilling debut, Wonderfully creepy debut ... Cleverly plotted and keeping the reader on the edge of the seat until the end of with a supremely satisfying denouement., Set on the Yorkshire moors, one of the blasted motherlands of gothic fiction, The Wayward Girls moves between 1976 and the present day to spool out the story of a haunting . . .The novel is very much in conversation with the stories, both real and fictional, that have come before it . . .What sets The Wayward Girls apart is its finesse. With a touch so light that it appears accidental at first, Mason arranges things in pairs. Two girls look alike; one character is called Loo, and another Lew; there are two sets of researchers, and two haunted houses - one occupied by a young family, the other a care home. Before long, these pairs start to feel like the flickering of two images pasted together on a film reel. Even the prose has a celluloid quality; the point of view switches mid-paragraph so suddenly that it can be hard to follow, as though the film on the projector has slipped. Brilliantly, all of that is a clue. An engrossing response to paranormal films and gothic fiction, The Wayward Girls is a near-perfect ghost story., The Wayward Girls is a wonderful debut. Mason expertly weaves her own brand of gothic to explore the haunting secrets of two sisters. Gripping, compelling and beautifully accomplished.

Amanda Mason was born and brought up in Whitby, North Yorkshire. She studied Theatre at Dartington College of Arts, where she began writing by devising and directing plays. After a few years of earning a very irregular living in lots of odd jobs, including performing in a comedy street magic act, she became a teacher and has worked in the UK, Italy, Spain, and Germany. She now lives in York and has given up teaching for writing. Her short stories have been published in several anthologies. The Wayward Girls, her debut novel, was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers prize.