Cloven

In February 1830, surly Tomos Richards is ordered to take his 14-year-old mute and crippled sister Sian, along with his cattle drove, from Cardiganshire to London, hoping to find a cure there for her injuries. Her journey is beset by danger and cruelty and, when much of the drove is lost in a bog, Sian takes her chance to run away alone, save for her pony and her loyal dog. Desperate to return to Wales, she mistakenly arrives at Tripp's Cottage in Nether Wapford, where cholera has just taken hold and she is viewed with deep suspicion...

Switching to the present day, Ivan Browning, a 32-year-old pottery teacher with a tragic past, has escaped London to live in the same Tripp's Cottage. As the foot-and-mouth epidemic begins, he experiences ghostly pleas for help...while also becoming the target of two wealthy but, so far, untouchable local gangs. For his investigations into the cottage's haunted history is about to uncover a gruesome mystery which others will kill to keep buried deep.

'Sally Spedding is a font of creepy stories, the kind of tales which wheedle their way back into your mind, hours, maybe days and weeks later. . . ' WESTERN MAIL