Breathe: A Ghost Story
-
- €4.49
-
- €4.49
Publisher Description
Winner of the Salford Book Award, the Calderdale Book Award and the Virginia Readers' Choice Award. In May 2013 Breathe was
voted by the Schools Network of British Libraries as one of the top 100 adult and children's novels of all time.
A chilling story of the supernatural for readers of 10+.
Jack is used to danger. His asthma has nearly killed him more than once. But his new home has a danger he’s never known before - the spirits of the dead.
They can’t breathe, but in Jack’s house they chase, hide, scream.
Only Jack can see them. Only he can hear them. And only he can learn their secrets in time to save himself... and his mother...
'a true ghost story - the kind that lays it's cold fingers on you, grips tight and doesn't let you go even when the last page has been turned ... Wonderfully spine-chilling...' The Bookseller
'An astoundingly creative story, with some truly scary moments ... the remarkable way in which McNish develops the theme of breathing, including an acutely well-drawn representation of Jack's chronic asthma, and you find yourself with a multi-layered story that will genuinely unnerve the reader, in a way so many ghost stories fail to do.' Books for Keeps
'Scary, disturbing and intense, a thoroughbred amongst haunted house tales.' SFX
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An evil presence lurks in the 200-year-old farmhouse that Jack moves into with his mother. Jack, who suffers from asthma, can communicate with ghosts (an ability he recognized after his father's death), and on his first day in the house, he senses that it harbors many secrets. Living in the house is a ghost Jack names Ghost Mother, as well as four ghost children of various ages. Readers will quickly figure out that the Ghost Mother is a menacing character who holds the ghost children prisoners. At first, Jack enjoys his conversations with Ghost Mother but then things take a disturbing turn. It seems that Ghost Mother wants to be Jack's mother ("I never had a son, you know, though I often wished for one of my own"). In her desperation, she enters Jack's mother's body. When Jack doesn't respond the way she'd hoped, Ghost Mother seeks revenge. A chain of events builds the suspense until Jack's near-death face-off with Ghost Mother. The alternating story in McNish's (The Silver Child) gruesome and chilling tale reveals what happened in the farmhouse 150 years before. Unfortunately, the happily-ever-after ending detracts from the overall creepiness of this intriguing and rather scary ghost story. Ages 10-up.