"Hold My Hand"

New from Soho Constable: Serena Mackesy's Hold My Hand.

About the book, from the author's website:

Bridget Sweeny and her daughter, Yasmin, need to get out of London, fast. They’re drowning in debt and living in hell – and Kieran, Yasmin’s violent father, won’t take no for an answer, even if it’s the courts that are saying it. So when Bridget is offered a cash-in-hand job caretaking Rospetroc House, a granite-built Elizabethan mansion on the edge of Cornwall’s Bodmin Moor, it seems like the answer to their prayers. They can disappear. Their problems, if not over, can at least go on hold.

But Rospetroc has a reputation in the village and a history of high staff turnover. The house’s former owners didn't die happily. Her predecessor has left without even finishing her meal. Strange things start happening, and Yasmin develops an imaginary friend. And Kieran, back in London, is still not taking no for an answer. Slowly, as events in the house escalate, Bridget begins to suspect that they are not alone after all...

Hold My Hand is a supernatural thriller on two timelines. It tells the intertwined stories of Bridget, Yasmin and Lily, an unwanted child from the Portsmouth docks, evacuated to escape the Luftwaffe into the unwelcoming arms of the dysfunctional Blakemore family. Lily’s and Yasmin’s situations are tied together over the decades — but who is Lily: avenging angel or angry demon?

Visit Serena Mackesy's website.