ACHUKA Book of the Day 26 Jun 2026
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 9780008806323
See also:
On The Wall [ACHUKA Book of the Day 6 Sep 2024]
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What an engrossing and unsettling read this is. It gets off to a flying start when Jess lets her best friend Tina bring a wet football up into her bedroom and kicking it about. It leaves a big muddy mark on her wall. Situation set up on page 1.
The friends go to a charity shop and find a picture just the right size to cover up the mark. It has just been returned by another customer so the girls don’t have to pay a penny for it.
Cue for a disturbing horror story in which the portrait gradually becomes more and more sinister, inducing nightmares.
Emily Jones’s illustrations sensibly, given the book’s target readership, choose not to overemphasise the horror.
Adult fans of Anne Fine can enjoy another creepy creation of hers in the form of Tansy Devoy: A Case Study:
A child psychologist is given the job of compiling a pre-trial assessment report on a girl who kidnapped her young cousin and hid him in a coalshed where he remained for two days before being found. Over the course of the novel we find out more and more — by way of conversations and formal interviews — about the girl, her parents, the cousin’s family and close neighbours.
The defiant character of Tansy is brilliantly evoked. Notwithstanding the psychologist’s forthright views on parental responsibility the book dares us to consider the possibility of inherently evil intent.
A chillingly unsettling read.
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