The New York Times Notable Book of the Year
Long-listed for the Man Booker Prize
Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction

"The strangest, creepiest, most sorrow-and-pity-inducing book I've read for a very long time . . . [and] a great ghost story. A chilling masterpiece."
-Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials series

Considered one of the greatest writers of her generation, Man Booker Prize-winning author Hilary Mantel delivers a mid-career masterwork, as dark as it is riveting.

Colette and Alison are unlikely cohorts: one a shy, drab beanpole of an assistant, the other a charismatic, corpulent psychic whose connection to the spiritual world torments her. When they meet at a fair, Alison invites Colette at once to join her on the road as her personal assistant and companion. Troubles spiral out of control when the pair moves to a suburban wasteland in what was once the English countryside. It is not long before the place beyond black threatens to uproot their lives forever. This is Hilary Mantel at her finest-insightful, darkly comic, unorthodox, and thrilling to read.