After reaching a crisis point at 40, Jenny Watson is offered her dream job running a Shakespeare festival at a Tudor pub. She can hardly believe her luck at this brilliant new start, and chance to escape her unhappy past. The job isn't all it seems, however. The pub is remote and her mysterious boss is permanently absent; there's a 400 year old skull residing in the cellar; and the local actors are less than enthusiastic over her boss's choice of play. Then there's the growing conviction that someone's watching her. Strange messages, withheld calls and shadows on the windows spike temporary attacks of stress-related blindness as she clings to her last chance to live her dream.

But as the dark play she's directing starts to unravel the secrets she'd sworn never to tell, Jenny realises she's not at the pub by chance . . . and soon she finds herself the leading lady in a nightmare replay of her past.

A page-turning thriller with elements of cosy crime but with darker undertones... Highly recommended, an established debut with the feeling that the story is not yet over - more to come from this fabulous author. Review by Debz Hobbs-Wyatt, author, editor, publisher.