‘Harding winds things nice and taut… brilliant tension where the reader knows something wicked is this way coming, but with little clue as to the direction… The eeriness pervades like a dank fog.A unique chance to read these two chilling Gothic tales from the brilliant storyteller John Harding together. Written in an unusual voice, full of invented words, I found the whole thing gripping.’ – The Bookseller ‘Nods at The Turn of the Screw but turns into something far more sinister. It’s a scarily good story, in an arrestingly unusual narrative voice.’ – The Oxford Times ‘Thoroughly ingenious and captivating…This is a book in which nothing is certain - neither for the characters, nor for our perception of them and of what is happening…. Very creepy, very haunting….Delicate, disturbing with a wonderful Amberson’s’ feel…’ - Mark Gatiss ‘ Florence and Giles by John Harding is excellent. Florence feels the horror of her situation “cheese-grating” her soul, which is just how Harding leaves the reader feeling at the end of this creepily suggestive story.’ Financial Times ‘A tight gothic thriller… The climax becomes unbearably tense. powerfully and convincingly convey the vulnerability of children faced with terror.' - The Independent Florence's often very personal narrative does. 'Harding rings enough ingenious changes on James's study of perversity to produce his own full-blown Gothic horror tale. ' Florence and Giles is an elegant literary exercise worked out with the strictness of a fugue: imagine Henry James's The Turn of the Screw reworked by Edgar Allan Poe.Nothing prepares you for the chillingly ruthless but inevitable finale.' - The Times

' Florence and Giles is a gripping gothic page-turner told in a startlingly different and wonderfully captivating narrative voice.' - The Guardian A darkly glamorous tour de force.' - Wendy Holden, Daily Mail Your Twilight-reading teen will love it too. Like James, Harding keeps his dramatis personae tightly confined and ramps up the suspense and mystery until even the most careful reader wonders what's going on and what isn't. Real atmosphere is increasingly rare in novels and here it is in spades mysterious towers, faces in mirrors, shadowy corridors and long black dresses.

'You don't need to know The Turn of the Screw to enjoy it.

Florence & Giles by John Harding