‘Intricate, intelligent, immensely satisfying, and with a deliciously spooky edge’ Cara Hunter‘Highly recommended’ Louise Candlish‘Clever and creepy’ Erin Kelly‘Beguiling’ Mick Herron‘Spellbindingly brilliant’ Sarah Hilary‘Highly intelligent’ Sarah Vaughan‘Sublime’ Jo Spain‘Different’ Sabine Durrant‘Chilling’ Kate Hamer‘Simply brilliant!’ JP Delaney‘Twisted’ Amanda JenningsWhen the eight-year-old … Vaughan
‘Sublime’ Jo Spain
‘Different’ Sabine Durrant
‘Chilling’ Kate Hamer
‘Simply brilliant!’ JP Delaney
‘Twisted’ Amanda Jennings
When the eight-year-old daughter of an Oxford College Master vanishes in the middle of the night, police turn to the Scottish nanny, Dee, for answers.
As Dee looks back over her time in the Master’s Lodging – an eerie and ancient house – a picture of a high achieving but dysfunctional family emerges: Nick, the fiercely intelligent and powerful father; his beautiful Danish wife Mariah, pregnant with their child; and the lost little girl, Felicity, almost mute, seeing ghosts, grieving her dead mother.
But is Dee telling the whole story? Is her growing friendship with the eccentric house historian, Linklater, any cause for concern? And most of all, why is Felicity silent?
Roaming Oxford’s secret passages and hidden graveyards, Magpie Lane explores the true meaning of family – and what it is to be denied one.
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A nanny is questioned by police about the disappearance of the child in her care. As police officers pose their questions, she recounts the events of the previous seven months, revealing more to the reader than to the detectives but still withholding a great deal.
Set against a backdrop of the academic snobbishness of Oxford University, we meet a string of dubious characters in a deliciously creepy old house.
This is a modern spin on traditional storytelling and very well done indeed. I will seek out other books by this talented author.
This is a superb, psychological thriller with an added twist of romance. Eight-year-old, selective mute, Felicity, has gone missing and the novel opens with the police questioning Dee, her middle-aged Scottish nanny. This interview technique allows Atkins to flit back and forth in the narrative, beginning with Dee meeting new college master, Nick Law, on a bridge in Oxford. From the start there is an uneasy sense that Dee isn’t quite reliable, but her understanding and empathy of Felicity’s situation means you are on team Dee/Linklater from the start whereas the entitled Nick and his new, young Danish wife, are very unlikeable. I had some sympathy for the wall of hostility the couple faced whilst trying to modernise their Oxford residence, but Nick’s neglect of his daughter and his wife’s intolerance of Felicity had me fuming at times. The mystery is set against the backdrop of a sprawling college mansion about which the eccentric Linklater, the house detective, uncovers terrible secrets – all which adds to an impending sense of doom. I loved the beautiful descriptions of the William Morris wallpaper and the toxic-green priest hole. Atkins is the master at dropping bombshells into the narrative then quickly moving on – and it is what Dee doesn’t say but thinks which is the most revealing. This is a novel about being an outsider in a world of privilege and what being a family really means. A twisty, creepy fantastic read with a very satisfying ending.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The plot centres on the disappearance of a young girl. It unfolds in flashbacks from the perspective of her nanny, Dee, as she is interviewed by the police in their quest to find the child. Set in the city of Oxford, it has a wonderful sense of place and there are many interesting facts thrown in throughout (such as the fact that the clock tower at Christ Church College, whose bell sounds 101 times each night, remains five minutes behind GMT – plus the disclosure of the original name for Magpie Lane, which might raise an eyebrow or two!). The newly-appointed Master of an Oxford College, Nick Law, moves Dee, an experienced nanny, into the Master’s Lodging to care for his selectively mute daughter, eight year old Felicity. We learn that the child’s mother passed away four years earlier, although the reason for her demise is not clear. Mariah, Nick’s glamorous second wife, is expecting their first child and it becomes clear that her relationship with her stepdaughter is strained. Felicity speaks rarely – and then only to her father, although as time passes she gradually begins to trust and confide in Dee. There are eerie noises within the house and a priest hole in Felicity’s bedroom, which all helps to build the sense of foreboding and intrigue. This is a beautifully crafted and twisty tale, building to an open-ended conclusion, which kept me turning pages long into the night. The characters are well-drawn and believable, and I was sorry to part company with them as I turned the last page. I shall look forward to reading more from Lucy Atkins. Highly recommended.