#Spooktober-‘The Lost Ones’ by Anita Frank

About the book…

Reeling from the death of her fiancé, Stella Marcham welcomes the opportunity to stay with her pregnant sister, Madeleine, at her imposing country mansion, Greyswick – but she arrives to discover a house of unease and her sister gripped by fear and suspicion.

Before long, strange incidents begin to trouble Stella – sobbing in the night, little footsteps on the stairs – and as events escalate, she finds herself drawn to the tragic history of the house.

Aided by a wounded war veteran, Stella sets about uncovering Greyswick’s dark and terrible secrets – secrets the dead whisper from the other side…

In the classic tradition of The Woman in Black, Anita Frank weaves a spell-binding debut of family tragedy, loss and redemption.

Thanks so much to Joe Thomas of HQ Stories for my gifted review copy of ‘The Lost Ones’!

And what a perfect day to review it on! HALLOWEEN! As the witching hour approaches, what better company to find ourselves in than this debut offering from exciting new talent, Anita Frank?
As a huge fan of Susan Hill I was supremely excited to receive this glorious harcover copy and dived straight into the tale of a woman is both haunted, and haunting.

The book is creepily scary, it is not until you are in too deep, engrossed in the story of sisters Stella and Madeleine that you realise you are trapped and cannot get out…nor do you really want to.

The creepy houses, the overwhelming sense of loss and grief as well as the social obligation to hide evidence of such feelings is stifling. Stella uses her sister’s pregnancy as a distraction from the grief she feels over her fiancee’s death as Madeleine becomes more and more consumed by thoughts of terror and fear stuck, as she is, in her mother in law’s ancestral home, Greyswick.

Little things keep happening that lead Stella to suspect her curious maidservant, Alice, of playing pranks on them but it soon becomes apparent that there are sinister goings on lurking behind the privileged veneer of Lady Brightwell’s stately home.

The love that the sisters have for each other needs to be strong enough to keep them surviving their stay at Greyswick and hold back the darkness which threatens to subdue their lives. Rarely has such menace and stalking fear been so succinctly conveyed, I completely adored this twisting, gothic tale which plays with notions of grief, love and recovery as well as mental health at a time when such things were not talked about. At a period when death stalked our very nation, before the First World War ended, the sense of numbness to the overwhelming horror of the wholesale slaughter of young men across Europe is reflected in Stella’s narrative and this is the perfect tale to read as the days grow shorter, and the nights get longer.

Welcome to Greyswick, built on secrets,maintained by lies and inhabited by ghostly appearances.

Will there be a happy ending?

Read ‘The Lost Ones’ and find out for yourself…

About the author…

A farmer’s daughter from Shropshire, Anita studied English and American History at the University of East Anglia before moving to London to work in media analysis and communications.

She left paid employment to become a stay-at-home mum when she had the first of her three children. Sadly, Anita‘s youngest child developed a rare form of epilepsy in infancy which has left him severely mentally disabled and she is now his full-time-carer, but she has begun snatching what time she can to pursue her lifelong ambition of writing historical fiction.

Anita now lives in Berkshire with her husband, her two lovely girls and her gorgeous boy, a fluffy cat with an attitude, and a bonkers Welsh Springer Spaniel.

Twitter @Ajes74

@HQstories