I will admit, the first few chapters were a bit slow for me as we get to know our characters but those first few chapters were SO worth the wait. But guess what, guys!? The entire story is at the end of the book! Bless you, Elly, bless you. So much so that I was thinking, “Is this book real? If so, I need to find it and read it. I loved reading the snippets of Clare’s favorite short horror story, The Stranger. If you’ve never read a “bookception” book, it’s a book within a book. It isn’t until the killer writes a line in her diary that she realizes she may be the link to all the murders.

With the body count rising, Clare scrambles to keep her daughter, Georgia, safe and to try and understand why her colleagues and friends are being murdered. Clare’s favorite work of fiction is brought to life when her best friend turns up dead, killed in the same manner as the first victim in The Stranger. It’s the story of a stranger on a train who tells a young boy the story of his friends and school colleagues… and how they all died. Legend has it that when you see her ghost, it means someone has been slated for death and their death is coming soon.Ĭlare loves Holland’s stories and is obsessed with one story in particular, The Stranger. The stories say that Holland’s wife died one night after taking a nasty fall down the stairs of the home. Then one day she notices some other writing in the diary.‘”If you’ll permit me,” said the Stranger, “I’d like to tell you a story.”’Ĭlare Cassidy is a creative writing teacher at Talgarth High, a school that was once the Victorian home of horror author R. Not knowing who to trust, and afraid that the killer is someone she knows, Clare confides her darkest suspicions and fears about the case to her journal.

The investigating police detective is convinced the writer’s works somehow hold the key to the case. Then Clare’s life and work collide tragically when one of her colleagues is found dead, a line from an R.M. Holland, she teaches a short course on them every year. As a literature teacher specialising in the Gothic writer R.M. Can the ending be rewritten in time?Ĭlare Cassidy is no stranger to tales of murder. I loved this book! And you will too’ LOUISE PENNYĪ dark story has been brought to terrifying life. ‘At once a homage to the Gothic thriller, and a re-imagining, it is goose-bump spooky, smart, and haunting, in every sense. ‘Compelling, intelligent and increasingly mesmerising’ PETER JAMES ‘Utterly bewitching … a pitch-perfect modern Gothic’ AJ FINN, author of THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW

Rm holland the stranger