Right now' - Patrick Ness, author of A Monster Calls. In a quest to find the truth she must travel into the terrifying Underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family – before it's too late. In a quest find the truth she must travel into the terrifying Underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family before its too late. Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself. She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out. Her first fantasy novel for children, Fly By Night (2005), set in an alternative 17 th century, won the Branford Boase Award for. She read English at Oxford then worked as a technical author for a computer software company. Every character, from the clearly ominous Behinders to Triss herself, presents as some form of monster, but Hardinge takes time and care to tease out hidden layers of humanity. She enjoyed a bookish childhood in an isolated old house on a hilltop in the country. She is insatiably hungry her sister seems scared of her and her parents whisper behind closed doors. She tasks herself with finding empathy and reason behind every so-called monster, and this story features a lot of them. When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong. 'Who do you think you are? This is my family.' 'What are you doing here?' It was uttered in tones of outrage and surprise, and in a voice as cold and musical as the clinking of cups. Then the tiny mouth moved, opened to speak. Slowly they swivelled, until their gaze was resting on Triss's face. The first things to shift were the doll's eyes, the beautiful grey-green glass eyes.

Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge, the Costa Award-winning author of The Lie Tree, is a fantastically eerie and beautifully written novel, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Carnegie Medal.

Cuckoo song frances hardinge summary