Secrets whispered up a chimney, a golden locket with a broken chain, murder in the streets of London - and suddenly young Barnacle is plunged into a terrifying mystery. The December Rose is a thrilling tale of deceit, espionage and murder set in the teeming, colourful Victorian London.

'Him what's born on the chime ...he's the one what'll have communications with the devil.' At the age of fourteen, 'chime-child' Peter Gannet is apprenticed to a locksmith in Covent Garden. But his desperate longing to escape from the insufferable adults around him and go to sea leads him into some dubious undertakings. Before long, the old ship's carpenter's dire prophecy comes true, for in the locksmith's workroom he meets a phantom with an empty sleeve. Tense and atmospheric, this is a gripping thriller about ghosts, a wall of hands, envy, dishonesty and finally murder!

Two boys, Lewis and Richard, travel to paris in 1789 for very different reasons, and find their ideals challenged in the events of the French Revolution and the September massacre.