A FAMILY feud mixes with horror fantasy in this dark teen novel.

Cat and Kat are stepsisters, forced into living together by their parents' second marriage, but hating each other venomously, even though their respective brothers, Roley and John, have managed admirably to get on.

The feuding family head off together for a holiday in the Lake District, staying in an old, rambling country house where Kat and John's late mother grew up.

The house is full of sinister secrets: a set of macabre dolls which seem to move around of their own free will, and a set of notebooks describing a horrific fantasy game involving symbolic sacrifice and annihilation.

Soon the four siblings are sucked into this fantasy world and it seems the whole family will be destroyed.

As the plot spins towards its climax it becomes somewhat far fetched and confusing, but the story makes a great read for its brilliant portrayal of troubled step-relationships. (Age 11+)