Every year Cara and her family go through a period of bruising and breaking and battering as one mishap after another, large and small, plague them and mark them and sometimes inflict tragedy on them. This is a very odd thing, but this year there are more odd things to come. Why does Elsie, a girl Cara used to be friends with it, appear in all her photographs? Why isn't she turning up at school and why do none of he teachers and classmates seem to know who she is? Searching for Elsie, organising a Halloween party in a haunted house, and enduring accident after accident, Cara and her sister, step-brother and best friend begin to uncover the terrible, life-changing secrets behind the Accident Season.

The Accident Season has a terrific premise, wonderfully drawn characters, a spooky and eerie atmosphere, but what elevates it is the quality of the writing, beautiful and polished, full of strange and arresting imagery and insights into life and love and friendship. The whole book feels strange and supernatural long before any supernatural element is hinted at. But at the same time it remains grounded both physically and emotionally. A great achievement.