Frost Hollow Hall: 'The Queen of Historical Fiction at her finest.' Guardian

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Tilly’s heart sinks. Will’s at the door of their cottage, daring her to come ice-skating up at Frost Hollow Hall. No one goes near the place these days. Rumour has it that the house is haunted . . . Ten years ago the young heir, Kit Barrington, drowned there in the lake. But Tilly never turns down a dare. I loved the inclusion of séances which were all the rage during that time period. The author highlights how many people desperately believed in these while others were more sceptical. I live in Bury, at the NW corner of the ‘crossroads’ of the South Downs and the River Arun. I used to cycle daily to Amberley Station on my Brompton folding bike and had a strange occurrence on two occasions around ten or so years ago during cold winters where my brake cables froze solid. The location is a tight ‘S’ bend where the road dips to a very low altitude (6m), immediately at the base of the Downs, below a woodland which forms what I understand is known as a ‘hangar’ (a sort of crescent shaped bowl in the hillside – a local Sussex word I am guessing).

Tensions arise between Lady Barrington, Mrs Jessop, the housekeeper, and other members of staff and eventually, after an ill-fated séance, Tilly is dismissed, much to her disappointment for she was determined to unravel the mystery of Hollow Hall. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2022-07-08 16:05:33 Autocrop_version 0.0.14_books-20220331-0.2 Bookplateleaf 0008 Boxid IA40594509 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier At the start of the novel, Tilly works as a ‘pupil-helper’ at her local school, ‘cleaning slates and carrying coal and showing the young ones how to read’. As soon as she becomes fascinated with Kit and how he came to drown, however, she takes up a place as a housemaid at Frost Hollow Hall so that she is able to find out more about him. She believes that she can help him, and bravely tries to do so. Synopsis: 'The gates to Frost Hollow Hall loomed before us. They were great tall things, the ironwork all twisted leaves and queer-looking flowers. And they were very definitely shut.' Tilly's heart sinks. Will's at the door of their cottage, daring her to come ice-skating up at Frost Hollow Hall. No one goes near the place these days. Rumour has it that the house is haunted . . . Ten years ago the young heir, Kit Barrington, drowned there in the lake. But Tilly never turns down a dare. As I crossed a large field, I only saw one fully frost-covered leaf. It was in the lowest spot in the field, a frost hollow that was only a few inches wide.A perfect ghostly mystery for fans of Eva Ibbotson, Ellen Renner and Marie-Louise Jense.' We Love This Book When Will Potter dares her to go ice-skating on the frozen lake in the forbidden grounds of Frost Hollow Hall she goes along. Not because she likes him like all of the other girls in the village but because she craves adventure and excitement in her life. This is when the story comes into its own. Emma Carroll's descriptive prose is perfect in portraying Frost Hollow Hall as an intimidating yet beautiful place, full of mystery and dark secrets. As well as being a classic ghost story this book also has the theme of how to deal with the loss of someone you love, and moving on with your life. It is an astonishingly good book for someone's first novel but I do think you need to be about 11 to read it. It is told by Matilda (Tilly) Higgins, who, after falling in the forbidden lake at the Hall and being rescued by an angel, or a ghost, or even the watching Will Potter, loses her sister and father as they emigrate to America and then ends up as a maidservant at the Hall. These whole class reading sessions aim to develop children’s comprehension skills, whilst introducing them to the novels of popular children’s author Emma Carroll

When We Were Warriors is set in England during the second world war, one of Carroll’s favourite settings. This is not a single novel but a connected grouping of three novellas featuring people and places that Carroll fans have already met in previous adventures.

The main thread of the novel begins in the first chapter, when our young narrator, Tilly Higgins, is introduced. Her voice immediately sets out her character: ‘I was proper fed up with waiting. I’d been on look-out now for two whole hours and there was still no sign of Pa’. He is due home from ‘a stint on the railways’, bringing with him much needed money to pay the family’s rent. Tilly makes it clear that they are poor: ‘We didn’t even own enough chairs for us all to sit down at the same time’, and so when her father fails to turn up, she begins to worry.