The Stopped Heart : A Novel

Bloody brilliant.Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train

Internationally bestselling author Julie Myersons beautifully written, yet deeply chilling, novel of psychological suspense explores the tragediespast and presenthaunting a picturesque country cottage.

Mary Coles and her husband, Graham, have just moved to a cottage on the edge of a small village. The house hasnt been lived in for years, but they are drawn to its original features and surprisingly large garden, which stretches down into a beautiful apple orchard. Its idyllic, remote, picturesque: exactly what they need to put the horror of the past behind them.

One hundred and fifty years earlier, a huge oak tree was felled in front of the cottage during a raging storm. Beneath it lies a young man with a shock of red hair, presumed deadsurely no one could survive such an accident. But the red-haired man is alive, and after a brief convalescence is taken in by the family living in the cottage and put to work in the fields. The children all love him, but the eldest daughter, Eliza, has her reservations. Theres something about the red-haired man that sits ill with her. A presence. An evil.

Back in the present, weeks after moving to the cottage and still drowning beneath the weight of insurmountable grief, Mary Coles starts to sense theres something in the house. Childrens whispers, footsteps from above, half-caught glimpses of figures in the garden. A young man with a shock of red hair wandering through the orchard.

Has Marys grief turned to madness? Or have the events that took place so long ago finally come back to haunt her?