Foxlowe

At Foxlowe everyone has two names. One is a secret, meant to be lost. For most, it worked like this: first they had the one they came to Foxlowe with peeled away like sunburnt skin. Then a new name, for a new life… I had no old name to peel away, because I was born at Foxlowe. Foxlowe is a haven, a refuge, a place apart. A crumbling relic of a former stately home, it is a beautiful ruin, a fairy-tale land where the outside creeps in; moss and damp mingling with the wallpaper. Here Green lives with her family; a community of strays and outcasts. It is a world of magic and superstition, governed by rituals that keep the people inside safe from ‘the bad’ that lurks outside waiting to pounce. Green is taught that the people outside are monstrous, prepared to kill and eat each other and she is content to live within the circle of protection that has been built around her. Then her sister Blue is born and the community reluctantly takes in an injured outsider and Green is forced to question everything she has been taught and to consider the possibility that the real threat doesn’t lie outside, but within. A compulsive and chilling debut, Foxlowe offers a deft and sinister portrayal of a child’s view of an enclosed and private world. 'Will lure you in - then cut to the kill' – The Guardian 'To read Foxlowe is not unlike wandering through Foxlowe itself on some long night: I felt never quite certain where the corridors might take me, nor whom I might meet on turning a corner; and in the final moments I found myself hurtling down a flight of steps into the dark' - Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent