Christmas Tales of Terror by Chris Priestley

The story is narrated by the older grown up Michael and I particularly liked his voice. It’s set in the Victorian era in a country mansion – surrounded by a moat and quite isolated, with bleak weather and a desperate sense of foreboding. It’s only short and the pages just flew by.

A nail-biting story of hauntings and terror by the master of the genre, Chris Priestley.” But lonely doesn’t mean alone, as Michael soon realises that the house and its grounds harbour many secrets, dead and alive, and Michael is set the task of unravelling some of the darkest secrets of all. But little can prepare him for the solitude of the house itself as he is kept from his guardian and finds himself spending the Christmas holiday wandering the silent corridors of the house seeking distraction.

His arrival on the first night suggests something is not quite right when he sees a woman out in the frozen mists, standing alone in the marshes. One that would be unbelievable if it weren’t true! Michael’s parents are dead and he imagines that he will stay with the kindly lawyer, executor of his parents’ will …Until he is invited to spend Christmas with his guardian in a large and desolate country house. “Michael Vyner recalls a terrible story, one that happened to him. I do read quite a lot of YA novels but not normally ones aimed at this age range (I would say 10 – 14?) but, having said this it was a good read! Read the Dead of Winter yesterday – for Halloween – which seemed appropriate.

Christmas Tales of Terror by Chris Priestley