Awful End

When both of Eddie’s parents catch a disease that makes them turn yellow, go a bit crinkly round the edges and smell of old hot-water bottles, it’s agreed he should go and stay with relatives at their house, Awful End. Unfortunately for Eddie, those relatives are Mad Uncle Jack and Even-Madder Aunt Maud, and it doesn’t look as if the three of them are ever going to reach their destination.Set in a nineteenth-century world of blotchy skin, runaway orphans and a stuffed stoat called Malcolm, this wonderfully rich and ridiculous adventure will grip and entertain anyone from 8 to 80 (and any 90-year-olds who can lay their hands on a copy, too).