The Hiding Place

I loved Amanda's first book, The Wayward Girls, so I was really looking forward to this, and it didn't dissapoint! She has a real talent for creating beautifully written, sympathetic and realistic adolescent girl characters (though I would stress that this is not YA fiction, it is more of a modern ghost story).
The novel mainly explores the difficult relationship between Nell and her 12 year old stepdaughter, but also covers the mother daughter relationships of a few other inhabitants of the village where they are staying. Nell and her husband are renting a mysterious house in the village where Nell once lived, partly as a holiday and partly as Maude, the stepdaughter has had to leave school for an unknown reason. Mason creates a great ominous atmosphere with just the right amount of spooky goings on, especially when the family discovers the hiding place of the title. When the husband leaves for work reasons and they are left alone, the tension of staying in the house, their relationship and Nell's longing for a child of her own come to the forefront.
This is a really different kind of ghost story, and if you are looking for something spooky but also sensitivily written and absorbing I highly recommend it.