Let’s get this out of the way to begin with: I loved Peter Beagle’s Tamsin! I’ve never read Beagle before, but Nymeth and Chris both recommended this one. I managed to completely forget everything about it except that they enjoyed it, so when I picked it up and realised it was a ghost story, I was super excited.

The story takes awhile to get going, but I’m a leisurely reader so that didn’t bother me. Nineteen-year-old Jenny, at the promptings of her best friend, has written down what happened to her when she was thirteen, beginning with her and her mothers’ move to Dorsetshire, England to live with her mother’s new husband. Jenny is a typical thirteen-year-old: a bit of a brat, who just can’t seem to help being contrary. I sympathised: while I didn’t get high (the drug use felt extraneous to me, but that’s my only quibble with the book), I certainly had the “If I’m not happy, no one is” attitude at that age. Also, I just happened to move from England back to the States when I was fourteen, and while I was excited about the move (I’m always excited about moving), there was definite culture shock. Culture shock plus puberty never makes a pretty picture. I also sympathise with the older Jenny, who looks back cringingly at her younger self! Beagle perfectly captures the narrative voice, and what it’s like to be a young girl feeling completely out of control with everything.

And while the ghost story takes awhile to take main stage-it’s always teasing around the margins-once it does, it’s just perfect. There’s good and evil and mystery and the Middle Ages and faeries and even a Pooka. I’m not going to give any more away, but you ought to go read this one right now.