Book description
Viola Hatherley was a writer of ghost stories in the 1890s whose work
lies forgotten until her great-grandson, as a young boy in Mawson,
Australia, learns how to open the secret drawer in his mother's room.
There he finds a manuscript, and from the moment his mother catches
him in the act, Gerard Freeman's life is irrevocably changed. What is
the invisible, ever-present threat from which his mother strives so
obsessively to protect him? And why should stories written a century
ago entwine themselves ever more closely around events in his own
life?
Gerard's quest to unveil the mystery that shrouds his family, and
his life, will lead him from Mawson to London, to a long-abandoned
house and the terror of a ghost story come alive.
John Harwood grew up in Hobart and studied literature and philosophy
at the universities of Tasmania and Cambridge. He has published
biography, political journalism, satire and poetry. He is also the
author of
The Seance
.
