Compelling evocation of ancient folklore by an award-winning author, the tale of a boy's bid to play music at any cost - even the loss of his humanity to the faery Otherworld.
Each year the Lammas Fair draws musicians and story-tellers to the grounds of the 17th-century house where Mick's father is manager. This year a woman comes to sell herbs and candles - and offer Mick help with his music. His flute-playing blossoms, yet he is consumed by it, fading as the music swells. Grotesque incidents mar the Fair. In horror, Mick's friend Katie understands the woman is drawing Mick into the Otherworld, to cross the boundary for ever. A compelling evocation of ancient folklore: the luring of a young man by a faery woman, and the rites of the Corn King, nurtured to full growth, then cut down.
Catherine Fisher has an extraordinary imagination, always coming up with some new twist that is both weird yet utterly convincing. - Nicholas Tucker, Rough Guide to Children's Books
... creates a thrilling, chilling world of magic and menace - The Mail on Sunday
Catherine Fisher has an outstanding capacity for the spinning and weaving of the slenderest threads into a stout and flawless tapestry. - Junior Bookshelf
A gripping story that'll keep you guessing! - Shout
DARKWATER HALL: 'Another novel from a seriously good author who always writes convincing fantasy without any of the accompanying overblown rhetoric ... makes for some nail-biting reading.' - The Independent
Catherine Fisher is an award-winning fantasy writer and author of the New York Times bestseller Incarceron. The Oracle was shortlisted for the Whitbread Award 2003, The Conjuror's Game for the Smarties Award, The Snow-Walker's Son for the WH Smith Mind Boggling Award, The Candle Man won the Tir-Na-n'Og Award, and Corbenic was shortlisted. Author of many books for children and two volumes of award-winning poetry, she is particularly well-known in Wales and has been named as the first Welsh Young People's Laureate.