Shadow Cat Summer

<p>Twins Katrina and Alex normally live on a houseboat in London but are spending the summer in Scotland while their mum a brilliant musician receives treatment. Aunt Clara is an artist like Alex and Uncle Archie is a forest ranger. Almost right away the twins find themselves searching for what seems to be a big cat. Or is something stalking them?</p><p>Rebecca Smith writes with such subtlety about the lives of twins Alex and Katrina uprooted from an uncertain life in a London houseboat after their vulnerable mother is found collapsed and in need of rehab.</p><p>Up in the Scottish Highlands despite the idyllic landscape and the loving support of their aunt and uncle something fearsome is prowling in the shadows. Could the deep scratches on a tree and the attacks on local livestock be the work of something bigger and wilder than a fox or a dog? </p><p>Has Alex really seen it outside in the night? </p><p>Or are he and his sister just being stalked by their own dark fears while they wait to find out whether their mother will recover?</p><p>A wonderfully atmospheric and lyrical story unsentimental but so affecting. - Ali Sparkes </p>