A Trick of the Dark

Zach and his sister Annis have been uprooted by their parents from their comfortable home to a remote and half-built barn in France. Zach is being removed from his 'bad-influence' friends, their parents are trying to salvage their marriage and still remain on speaking terms whilst the bitterness of their father's affair bubbles underneath the surface. And Annis - Annis just keeps going, keeping her head down, trying to keep it together.

So far so normal. And then Zach, uncommunicative and contrary as ever these days, defies everything their parents have said and makes his way to the unsafe ruined building at the edge of their new garden, and leans up against the wall. The wall bulges, totters - and suddenly collapses on top of him.

Annis, horrified, sees him crumpled on the ground. Desperate, she races towards him, not daring to think anything at all. She sees him, on the ground, broken, silent, not there any more.

And then, unbelievably, he moves. Zach moves. Zach, in an extraordinary and instinctive decision, has broken his bond with his own soul, the essence of himself.

By doing so he has cheated death. By doing so he has also cheated life. He is unable to touch any human person again.

And the essence of himself, his 'other', his soul, is chasing him, determined to rejoin what should rightfully be together. Zach is on the run, from himself, whom he can never escape, from death, but also from the life that he can never enjoy again. Perhaps only a sister can help him now.

Prizes

A rarity: a second novel that more than exceeds the promise of the first, which was picked as the Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week From an author nominated for the Carnegie Medal and winner of the Branford Boase Award for her debut novel, The Traitor Game A taut psychological thriller that will appeal to all teens with an interest in the supernatural

About the Author

B.R. Collins is a graduate of both university and drama school. Her first novel The Traitor Game was published to much acclaim and was both winner of the Branford Boase Award 2009 and nominated for the 2009 Carnegie Medal. Bridget lives in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.