Michael doesn’t like his new house. It’s dusty and full of holes. He thinks it needs knocked down and built all over again, but this is where he lives now, his new home. His mum and dad had called it a ‘work in progress’ when they moved in. He just wants to play football with his friends who are now a bus journey away.

His baby sister is ill, her wails keep him awake into the wee small hours until his mum’s calming voice can be heard through the thin walls, telling her she will be fine. He can hear her little chest breathing and rattling as her visits to the hospital increase and his parents are consumed with grief and fear for her tiny life.

Michael is drawn to the dilapidated garage at the end of their overgrown garden, there’s something pulling him towards the boarded up building, whispering for him to climb inside and search within its dark, spider-filled void for a secret he can’t tell anyone about. Is it just a figment of his imagination or is there someone…something… hidden among the cobwebs?

Mina lives next door, she’s home-schooled and he thinks she’s extraordinary in every way. Together they discover the truth about what the garage holds and the story unfolds as they share the burden of their secret find. Without them realising, Mina and Michael are connected in a way that neither of them could ever have realised, a connection that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

A stunning novel from David Almond that will have you transfixed by every word until the very last page has been read.

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