On a fragile planet with few choices left, technology offers magic solutions. But if technology can be re-mastered at the touch of a button, how can one know what is really true? And what place is left for the old magic of the imagination? These are questions at the heart of Rosemary Pavey's tale. For young Trudi Larsson, they become a battleground between the mythic values of her half-Sami grandfather and the machinations of a plot to steal the blueprint of life. Bees, stars and spindle-whorls... From Inca legend to Arctic snow, the story takes a roller-coaster ride charting landscapes...

The Larssons are a model, modern family: successful parents, gifted children, a stylish, comfortable home. Everything in their lives seems perfect until Grandfather Larsson comes to stay. Then uneasy cracks appear. The old man brings draughts of a subversive other-world from his forest home in Sweden and within days of his arrival, the household's careful, summer plans are in disarray. While her parents fume at the disruption, ten-year-old Trudi is intrigued by Per. Why is he so secretive about his past? And where does he go when he should be asleep in his bed? And how does he contrive to...

Here is everything you need for a winter night's entertainment. Call in the cat, close the doors, put another log on the fire and curl up with these stories, which range from the curious to the downright spine-chilling From the backstreets of Brighton to the Wilds of Wales, you are never far from a badly buried past, and of all times of the year, when the dead are restless, Christmas is surely the best...