Four years after suffering the horrors of Cain Lankin (Long Lankin, 2012), sisters Cora, 15, and Mimi, 8, return to Bryers Guerdon and the nightmarish, old house they hoped never to see again. While this stand-alone companion to Long Lankin can be enjoyed on its own, it will have greater impact on readers already familiar with the tale. In its early chapters, Barraclough explores the curse placed on the Guerdon family by Aphra Rushes, a witch and Lankin's companion, by revealing Aphra's childhood in 1567 through to her execution. In 1962, the curse still lingers, as does the vengeful spirit of Aphra, which creeps ever nearer Guerdon Hall, searching for a body to possess in order to snuff out the last Guerdon descendants ra and Mimi. Barraclough slowly builds suspense as the girls sense things are still not quite right at home, and flashes of Aphra's consciousness invade the narrative. Some readers may find the horror too subtle, but the creepy atmosphere is perfection, and patient readers will be rewarded with a dramatic climax.

Cora, Mimi, and Roger are back—back at Bryers Guerdon and in for another dose of mysterious, creeping horror in Barraclough's follow-up to Long Lankin (2012).Four years after the defeat of the centuries-old monster Cain Lankin, Cora and Mimi's dad has finally gotten them their inheritance: Auntie Ida's ramshackle mansion, their ancestral home. He's moved the girls and his girlfriend in before taking off back to what seems to be a life of petty crime. But nearly 400 years earlier, the witch Aphra Rushes cursed the Guerdons, and the return of the girls, the last of the family line, has awakened her malevolent spirit. Barraclough's writing crackles with tension, horror eked out amid dozens of period details vividly evoking rural 1960s England. Cora, now 15, is again the main character, sharing first-person narration with Aphra's spirit (whose back story fills the first 70 pages) and still-stalwart Roger. A true sequel, written for the already initiated, this never truly recaps the first volume but instead builds on it, even acknowledging the way the experience with Cain Lankin changed the children, particularly Mimi and Pete, Roger's nightmare-plagued brother. Convenient adults with stores of mystical knowledge and some inconsistencies of pacing can't detract from the creeping need to stay up all night hoping for a happy end.Literary, scary, and made to read with all the lights on. (Historical fantasy/horror. 12 & up)