Where once a Romano-British settlement sprawled across the hills in the north of England, there lies a modern town. Caught in a tense struggle between the growth of the university and industrial expansion, its fate veers towards the uncanny when a discovery is made beneath the old town hall. Into the possession of the university comes the skeleton of a woman, found buried along with a mysterious tablet bearing a cryptic message, and as the ratcheting tension between the townspeople is compounded by an unseasonal heat and sightings of a shadowlike figure haunting the streets, the vengeful grip of a long-buried curse pushes the town towards a night of flames and carnage. ‘Much more than a ghost story… One might say that Fox is haunted by the spirit of the place and time of which she writes, and she is able to reproduce in a remarkable way that sense of foreboding and mystery that all of us have experienced.’ The Argus
