Every girl at Bathory School has heard stories about The Beast. No one believed they were true.
Until Now.
At sixteen Nash thought that the fight to become Head Girl of prestigious boarding school Bathory would be the biggest battle she'd face. Until her brother's disappearance leads to Nash being trapped at the school over Christmas with Bathory's assorted misfits.
As a blizzard rages outside, strange things are afoot in the school's hallways, and legends of the mysterious Beast of Bathory - a big cat rumoured to room the moors outside the school - run wild.
Yet when the girls' Matron goes missing it's clear that something altogether darker is to blame - and that they'll have to stick together if they hope to survive.
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[That last week at school before the Christmas holidays, death was in everything]***
(HQ, 24 September 2015, ebook, 320 pages, Around the Year in 52 Books 2019, a book set in a school or university, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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I've wanted to read this book for ages since I read a lot of rave reviews about it. I wish I hadn't waited so long because I missed a treat. I love books set in boarding schools, books that feature monsters and creepiness so this was a shoe in. I loved the setting, Bathory School, remote and exclusive, the perfect place for darkness to lurk. This book reminds me of a few different things but especially The Hound of the Baskerville's. The author is a genius at building suspense, as the assorted girls are stuck at the school over Christmas and things start to get darker, intense and more frightening. The plot fairly rattles along. I was hooked.
