Search results for ""Author Helen Grant""

Sometimes it’s terrifying, loving someone this much... For Fen Munro and her fiancé James, it is a dream come true: an escape from London to a beautiful house in the stunning Perthshire countryside. Barr Dubh house is modern, a building with no past at all. But someone walks the grounds, always dressed in lavender. Under a lichenous stone in an abandoned graveyard, a hideous secret lies buried. And at night, Fen is tormented by horrifying dreams. Someone wants Fen’s happiness, and nothing is going to stop them - not even death...

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Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, Helen Grant's first teen novel The Vanishing of Katharina Linden follows a misfit teenager as she attempts to unravel the mystery of several strange disappearances in the small town of Bad Münstereifel. The Vanishing of Katharina Linden bridges the world of the traditional Grimm fairytale with the darker world of Angela Carter's adult fairytales.On the day Katharina Linden disappears, Pia is the last person to see her. Terror is spreading through the town. How could a ten-year-old girl vanish in a place where everybody knows everybody else?Pia is determined to find out what happened to Katharina.But then the next girl disappears. . .'For something so chilling, it is terrific entertainment' Sunday Times'Grant's splendid debut...is a feast of treats and creeps. Wonderful' Guardian'A strange, haunting modern fairy tale' John Connolly, author of The Book of Lost ThingsThe setting of the small German town of Bad Münstereifel, in Helen Grant's debut novel The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, is based on her own experience of emigrating there from England as a child. Her other darkly thrilling young adult novels, The Glass Demon and Wish Me Dead, are also available from Penguin.

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The Simulacrum is the most famous lost movie in film history – would you tell someone your darkest secrets, just to lay hands on a copy? 104-year-old Mary Arden is the last surviving cast member of a notorious lost film. Holed up in Garthside, an Art Deco mansion reputed to be haunted, she has always refused interviews. Now Mary has agreed to talk to film enthusiast Theda Garrick. In return she demands all the salacious details of Theda’s tragic past. Only the hint of a truly stupendous discovery stops Theda walking out. But Mary’s prying questions are not the only thing Theda has to fear. The spirit of The Simulacrum walks Garthside by night, and it will turn an old tragedy into a new nightmare...

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"Langlands House is haunted, but not by the ghost you think." Augusta McAndrew lives on a remote Scottish estate with her grandmother, Rose. For her own safety, she hides from outsiders, as she has done her entire life. Visitors are few and far between - everyone knows that Langlands House is haunted. One day Rose goes out and never returns, leaving Augusta utterly alone.Then Tom McAllister arrives - good-looking and fascinating, but dangerous. What he has to tell her could tear her whole world apart. As Tom and Augusta become ever closer, they must face the question: is love enough to overcome the ghosts of the past? In the end, Langlands House and its inhabitants hold more secrets than they did in the beginning...

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'During the last night at Boca de Tomates a violent tropical storm raged across the coast, stampeding through the camp and devastating our home. We watched in awe as the already-slanting structure swayed precariously around us, as chunks of the roof flew off into the sky and as a nearby palm tree was struck by lightning. . . . Our comfortable Brighton flat and the once ubiquitous chatter of house prices and internet millionaires seemed a world away.' A great number of people consider volunteering at some point in their life and this is a nuts and bolts guide to volunteering full of honest accounts from the people who know. These are true-life accounts from people of all walks of life and ages who decided to leave their 'normal' lives behind to take up the volunteer challenge overseas. Their stories include tales of travel and adventure, tales of hardship, tales of kindness, frustration and humour. Reading them, you too will experience culture shock in Ghana, the fear of war in Sierra Leone, helplessness in the face of poverty in Cambodia, fishing for piranha in Suriname, the struggles of an outsider in China and much, much more. They will open your eyes to new worlds and may even change your outlook in the ways they changed the volunteers. Volunteer Tales will appeal to those who have already volunteered abroad or are considering it. It can be comforting and interesting to know that others have gone through similar experiences and, in the latter case, extremely useful to know what it would be like. Each contribution has something different to offer and is particularly fascinating for anyone wanting to know the reality of a country they may intend to visit. However, these stories will also be enjoyed by readers with no interest in becoming a volunteer at all. They provide entertaining, humorous reading brimming with memories from life on the road.

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