A review by mat_tobin
The Secret of Nightingale Wood by Lucy Strange

5.0

Such an impressive first novel. The Secret of Nightingale Wood is a tale of two halves for me. The first involves Henry moving into her new home in order for her family to cope with the mysterious loss of her older brother and the second half, much pacier and painfully tense, involves Henry having the save someone close to her. Wrapped within a quilted intertext based on rich children's literature around the dawn of the 20th century (as well as well before) Strange is so smart in her craft here. I don't want to give anything away but understands the power of place and character and literature to weave a clever and haunting tale that is still buzzing around in my thoughts several days after my reading.