I simultaneously sympathized deeply with Lucy, while wanting, now and then, to shake her just tad. Alice becomes increasingly unlikeable, and downright terrifying at the end, and her modern family grows increasingly more sympathetic. It's a lovey psychological drama, as Lucy's perceptions, and those of the reader, change over the course of the book. And now Alice wants Lucy to stay with her forever. Alice always gets what she wants, no matter if she has to lie or cheat to do so. But every time Lucy goes back to the past, Alice shows more and more of her true character. At first, Alice seems like the perfect friend. And there she meets Alice, who brings her back in time to the 19th century to play. Lucy, in her loneliness, goes up to the attic alone-a place where the past of the old house has been left undisturbed. She doesn't want to be there one single bit.Īnd her cousins don't know what to make of Lucy either-she makes no attempt to even try to see any good in them, and it's hard to be friendly with someone who clearly doesn't want to be friends. And Lucy has nothing whatsoever in common with her cousins, and doesn't even have a room of her own.

It is old on the inside, but in the process of being modernized (personal shudder) inside. The house is noisy-full of popular music, and television, and arguing.

When her aunt dies, Lucy is sent off to relatives she has never met (an uncle and aunt with three children of their own) and finds herself in a completely alien environment. Lucy has lived a very quiet childhood brought up by her extremely old-fashioned aunt-playing spillikins and croquet, educated at home, and generally out-of-step with modern (1970s) children.

Come Back, Lucy by Pamela Sykes (1977), published in the US as Mirror of Danger, is one I've been meaning to review for ages-it has an extremely loyal following of readers who were haunted by it, and was made into a television show that seems to have been equally popular.

Mirror of Danger by Pamela Sykes