Frost Hollow Hall: 'The Queen of Historical Fiction at her finest.' Guardian

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The main thread of the novel begins in the first chapter, when our young narrator, Tilly Higgins, is introduced. Emma Carroll's voice flows elegantly through this ghostly period tale of Tilly and her discovery of haunting secrets at Frost Hollow Hall.

It is an astonishingly good book for someone's first novel but I do think you need to be about 11 to read it. So cold it knocked the breath clean out of me… Slowly, gently, the lake closed over my head and all went quiet but for the blood pounding in my ears. The characters are all phenomenal and we see the growth of every single one throughout the novel but I had a special soft spot for Tilly, a normal, independent and loving girl that although she has problems of her own delights in being able to help other people. Tilly makes it clear that they are poor: ‘We didn’t even own enough chairs for us all to sit down at the same time’, and so when her father fails to turn up, she begins to worry.The mysterious setting of Frost Hollow Hall lures you in from the start, just as it does Tilly: ‘like I’d been tied with an invisible thread and someone at the Hall was on the other end of it, reeling me in. Compassionate Tilly knows she has to help him and despite the problems in her own family she manages to get a post as a maid at Frost Hollow Hall. Poor Tilly is used to being second best; always in the shadow of her sister who constantly sides with her mum leaving Tilly feeling left out and like the black sheep but Tilly doesn't let it get her too down, she's independent and headstrong.

Will’s invitation to ice skate on the frozen lake outside Frost Hollow Hall results in a near tragedy for Tilly. Meanwhile Tilly’s mother has problems, and of course her daughter wants to support her; and Tilly’s relationship with Will – who delivers meat to the hall – moves along nicely.Die Handlung selbst hat mich total gefesselt und ich konnte das Buch wirklich kaum aus der Hand legen.

But Tilly wasn’t going to let know that she was worried, and she skated right out to the middle of the lake. After nearly drowning in the frozen lake of Frost Hollow Hall she discovers that she has made a connection with the ghost of Kit Barrington and she must help him to put things right.Dadurch lässt sie sich aber nicht unterkriegen, auch wenn sie mit vielen Enttäuschungen zu kämpfen hat. Frost Hollow Hall is more than a ghost story; it’s a story that lives and breathes, and paint wonderful pictures, and it’s a story about love, family, loss, regret, and learning to let go, told beautifully, with both subtlety and charm. Once told by poet Ted Hughes her writing was ‘dangerous’, it took Emma Carroll twenty years of English teaching and a life-changing cancer diagnosis to feel brave enough to give her dream of being an author a try. It was only the ending that hit a slightly wrong note; I wasn’t unhappy with the way the story played out, and I appreciated that every detail was attended to. With creepy rooms, terrified maids, a house-keeper who seems to be hiding something and Lady Barrington mad with mourning, Frost Hollow Hall is a compelling read.