It's exactly as weird as it sounds, and it works. This is the kind of book where a girl unhinges her jaw to swallow a china doll whole. Scissors actively seek to kill anything fairylike. I n one scene, a child is sucked into a silent black-and-white film. You can use a telephone to call the otherworld. They are creepy dark fairies, but they are also modern in a way, intertwining with the technology and aesthetics of the 1920s. Another character that will stay in my head for a long time is a kindly tailor, whose determination to save a lost child brings out one of the most unnerving threats in the book. The slowly evolving friendship between Triss and her little sister Pen, for instance, was one of my favorite parts.

Many of the characters, not just Pen, are not what they seem at first. It's eerie, bizarre, and nightmarish, with some really beautiful prose. Ready for spoilers? This is a changeling story.

And now there is something wrong with Triss. Ever since the death of her older brother in the war, the family has been unhealthily divided and deeply miserable. This children's book is set in the 1920s not long after the first World War, and centers around Triss, a young girl from a well-to-do but deeply dysfunctional family. and she feels voraciously hungry, no matter how much she eats. Her memories are foggy, her own family seems unfamiliar. Right now' - Patrick Ness, author of A Monster Calls.Cuckoo Song begins with a girl waking up in bed after a mysterious injury. In a quest to find the truth she must travel into the terrifying Underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family – before it's too late. Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself. She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out. She is insatiably hungry her sister seems scared of her and her parents whisper behind closed doors. When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong. 'Who do you think you are? This is my family.' 'What are you doing here?' It was uttered in tones of outrage and surprise, and in a voice as cold and musical as the clinking of cups. Then the tiny mouth moved, opened to speak. Slowly they swivelled, until their gaze was resting on Triss's face. The first things to shift were the doll's eyes, the beautiful grey-green glass eyes. Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge, the Costa Award-winning author of The Lie Tree, is a fantastically eerie and beautifully written novel, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Carnegie Medal.

Cuckoo song by frances hardinge