When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows something is very wrong. She is insatiably hungry, her sister seems scared of her, and her parents whisper behind closed doors. She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out. 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. 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 . . .

Set in England after World War I, this is a brilliantly creepy but ultimately loving story of the relationship between two sisters who have to band together against a world where nothing is as it seems.

Frances Hardinge is the author of several books for children, including The Lost Conspiracy (five starred reviews; Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist), Fly by Night (shortlisted for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize), Well Witched (School Library Journal Best Book of 2008), and Fly Trap (shortlisted for the Guardian prize, longlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal). She lives in England.