This is a gripping 'Gothic' time slip adventure for 9-12 year olds. Living in dingy flats, never staying at one school for very long, and constantly reminded of her mother's stress about their lack of money, Jane longs for the kind of life where she doesn't have to share grown-up worries. When she is sent to stay with her student sister, Billa, in The Laurels, a decrepit Victorian mansion in Liverpool, it looks as if things can only get worse: it's freezing cold, there's nothing to eat, and Billa doesn't even want Jane there. The Laurels may now be shared by dozens of students, but it was once a glorious family home, and Jane is magically whisked back in time to its heyday in the 1890s. She finds friendship with Lucy, a girl her own age, and revels in the comforts of a warm house with delicious, regular meals and adults and servants to organize everything. But Jane quickly begins to sense sinister undertones: all is not what it seems and she is soon caught up in the snare of dark secrets. As the lies and deceit surrounding this apparently respectable Victorian family begin to unravel, Jane's chances of returning to her own life seem further and further out of reach.
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Diana Harker is the author of three adventure stories for children: Saxon Summer, The Knot Garden and Roman Graffiti (Tabb House). She lives in Cheshire and was a city guide in Chester. She knows Liverpool well - where House of Secrets is set.
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