As Catherine Symonds, newly appointed governess of Locksley Abbey, arrives in the foothills of the Black Mountains, where England bleeds into Wales, she feels apprehensive.
It is not the echoing, near-empty Abbey with its skeleton staff that frightens her, nor the ancient woods that surround the house, or even the dogs that stalk the grounds, baying for blood. It is Catherine herself who fears scrutiny. She has come here under false pretences, determined to secretly investigate the fate of the last governess at the house, her very own sister, Emily, who is reported to have taken her own life out in the woods.

But despite the reports of her sister’s death, Catherine finds herself increasingly drawn to the wood. A place of myth, memory and murder, she soon finds it will not give up its secrets easily, nor offer sanctuary to those who conceal dark deeds…

In the outstanding new novel from the author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Leviathan, an isolated forest becomes the unsettling, beguiling backdrop to a tale of myths, memory and murder?