When Lucas inherits Stoneborough Manor after his uncle's unexpected death, he imagines it as a place where he and his close circle of friends can spend time away from London. But from the beginning, the house changes everything. Lucas becomes haunted by the death of his uncle. When Lucas inherits Stoneborough Manor after his uncle's unexpected death, he imagines it as a place where he and his close circle of friends can spend time away from London. But from the beginning, the house changes everything. Lucas becomes haunted by the death of his uncle and obsessed by cine films of him and his friends at Stoneborough thirty years earlier. The group is disturbingly similar to their own, and within the claustrophobic confines of the house over a hot, decadent summer, secrets escape from the past and sexual tensions escalate, shattering friendships and changing lives irrevocably.

'Scary, sexy, sultry and shimmering - a brilliant debut in the vein of Donna Tartt finds a group of close friends discovering more than they bargained for in a creepy Oxfordshire manor' Daily Mirror 'Whitehouse manages to tug at the sinister threads running through the book at just the right moment, keeping her tale taut and her reader transfixed. Suggestions of the horrors that lie in wait are scattered throughout the book like a trail of breadcrumbs, leading you even deeper into the dark forest of Whitehouse's creation, at the heart of which lie deceit, cowardice and murder' Beth Jones, Sunday Telegraph 'Psychological suspense as elegant as a Swiss watch but as powerful as a locomotive subtle, intelligent, accessible, and highly recommended' Lee Child 'A pacy literary thriller deeply spooky, compulsively readable' Time Out.