Tomorrow’s Ghost
Tanya Landman
Walker Books

It’s the summer of 1976 and twelve year old Anna who is living with her Aunt Maggie, is to go and stay with Auntie Em, recently retired and moved into an isolated cottage in the countryside. Aunt Em tripped and fell over her new dog while the two were out walking, has badly sprained her ankle, is hardly able to walk and needs help. As a consequence, Anna packs a bag and sets off to somewhere she’s never been to stay with someone she barely knows: not a happy prospect, spending the summer far from her friends. However Peartree Cottage is a welcoming place and Anna likes her room.

Soon she starts having vivid dreams about a girl from 1919. The girl, Etty, lives with her harsh, unloving grandfather in a mansion surrounded by statues. This house, steeped in sadness, seemed to be calling to Anna. After five dreams, each more vivid, she is determined to find out what happened to Etty, even if it means telling lies about where she’s been to Aunt Em. Later on Colin from the village shop offers to take Anna swimming and strangely she finds herself being irritated by this.

Then at the library she learns from the librarian, of a terrible fire that destroyed much of Featherstone Manor with almost everyone getting out safely. But what of Lady Henrietta, who was twelve at the time? The only way Anna has a chance of saving her from a terrible and untimely demise is to find a way to communicate with her. A mirror she’d seen in Etty’s bedroom, perhaps …

Gripping, haunting and powerfully atmospheric, this story will have readers on edge until the final chapter reveal. I read it in a day, so bound up in the fate of both Etty and Anna had I become.