The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

When Bonnie’s parents leave for a voyage across the sea, she’s left in the care of a strident governess: Miss Slighcarp. Soon joined by her cousin Sylvia, the girls suffer cruel treatment at the hands of their governess and watch as every joyful element of their lives is dismantled. Meanwhile, menac......more

Those of us who grew up with an affinity for Victorian books, it might have started here, in Joan Aiken's 1962 classic Gothic / Dickensian love note, with its pitch perfect wicked governesses and wretched orphanages and aptronyms and moors and girls who are described as hoydens, and secret passages,......more

Set in 1832, in an imaginary period of history, where wolves roamed during the snow covered days of winter, Sir Willoughby is preparing to take his wife on a cruise as she is delicate and in need of a rest (raise eyebrows) and their daughter Bonnie is awaiting the arrival of her cousin Sylvia who is......more

| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | | “IT WAS DUSK – winter dusk. Snow lay white and shining over the pleated hills, and icicles hung from the forest trees. Snow lay piled on the dark road across Willoughby Wold, but from dawn men had been clearing it with brooms and shovels. There were hundreds of them at......more