Elspeth is eleven days from her eleventh birthday, desperately hoping her mother will fetch her from Rutherfords school, when a welfare officer arrives to take her to her grandfather, Sir Runstable of Whitterburn Hall, whom she has never met.
Her grandfather tells her she is heir to a vast inheritance. But in order to claim her rights, she has to learn the secret codes of the Shadow Garden – a set of squares laid out like a chess board in the grounds that offers extreme danger if you step on the shadowed squares and even worse consequences if you step backwards.
But before she can learn the codes of the garden, Elspeth makes the mistake of stepping backwards. This unfortunate slip takes her into a dark world of magic, mystery and danger. She meets vampire Count Dragool whose past wives populate the dungeons of his castle in the form of ghouls, and whose children are a collection of violent young vampires.
When the castle begins to collapse, Elspeth escapes and finds her way back to Whitterburn. Sir Runstable assumes Elspeth will return to the Shadow Garden to learn its secrets and her true identity, but Elspeth has had enough of the strange world of Whitterburn Hall and her equally odd grandfather, and refuses. All she wants is a settled life with her mother.
Unwittingly, however, she has brought back a talisman, a key that once applied, will unlock more secrets about Whitterburn and her extraordinary destiny. With the talisman in her hand, Elspeth realizes her adventures were real – and not yet over.
Book I of a fantasy series.
Her grandfather tells her she is heir to a vast inheritance. But in order to claim her rights, she has to learn the secret codes of the Shadow Garden – a set of squares laid out like a chess board in the grounds that offers extreme danger if you step on the shadowed squares and even worse consequences if you step backwards.
But before she can learn the codes of the garden, Elspeth makes the mistake of stepping backwards. This unfortunate slip takes her into a dark world of magic, mystery and danger. She meets vampire Count Dragool whose past wives populate the dungeons of his castle in the form of ghouls, and whose children are a collection of violent young vampires.
When the castle begins to collapse, Elspeth escapes and finds her way back to Whitterburn. Sir Runstable assumes Elspeth will return to the Shadow Garden to learn its secrets and her true identity, but Elspeth has had enough of the strange world of Whitterburn Hall and her equally odd grandfather, and refuses. All she wants is a settled life with her mother.
Unwittingly, however, she has brought back a talisman, a key that once applied, will unlock more secrets about Whitterburn and her extraordinary destiny. With the talisman in her hand, Elspeth realizes her adventures were real – and not yet over.
Book I of a fantasy series.
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