Magpie Lane

"Intricate, intelligent, immensely satisfying, and with a deliciously spooky edge" --Cara Hunter, author of In the Dark



Roaming through Oxford's secret passages and hidden graveyards, Magpie Lane explores the true meaning of family--and what it is to be denied one.



When the eight-year old daughter of an Oxford College Master vanishes in the middle of the night, police turn to the Scottish nanny, Dee, for answers.




As Dee looks back over her time in the Master's Lodging--an eerie and ancient house--a picture of a high achieving but dysfunctional family emerges: Nick, the fiercely intelligent and powerful father; his beautiful Danish wife Mariah, pregnant with their child; and the lost little girl, Felicity, almost mute, seeing ghosts, grieving her dead mother.




But is Dee telling the whole story? Is her growing friendship with the eccentric house historian, Linklater, any cause for concern? And most of all, why was Felicity silent?




"Highly Intelligent" --Sarah Vaughan, author of Anatomy of a Scandal




"Beguiling" --Mick Herron, author of the Slough House series

Lucy Atkins is an award-winning feature journalist and author, as well as a Sunday Times book critic. She has written for many newspapers, including the Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times, and the Telegraph, as well as magazines such as Psychologies, Red Woman, and Grazia. She lives in Oxford, England.