Twilight Ghost

A twilight ghost, we learn early on in Magdalen Nabb's novel, is 'a kind of long-lasting memory that ... fades away as the first star comes out and the day dies.' By the book's closing line, that first star has indeed appeared and the story's heroine, 11-year-old Carrie, is emerging a more self-assured young woman. At first extremely unhappy when changing circumstances compel her family to move to her grandmother's house, she is soon involved in a time-slip adventure which - occasionally quite frighteningly - gives her glimpses of how earlier family members had had to cope with their dilemmas and tragedies. It is not a particularly original theme, but Nabb's lyricism and her confidence in moving between present and historical time raise her story above the more conventional examples of the genre.