The Telling [Paperback]

A ghost story of the most unusual kind,The Tellingis a thrilling—and sometimes chilling—tale about two women, separated by almost two centuries, grappling with change and loss.

After her mother dies, Rachel sets off alone to pack up and sell off the remnants of her family’s isolated country house. But from the moment she steps through the front door, she feels that the house contains more than she had expected. Generations earlier, a young housemaid, Lizzy, called the same dwelling home. On course for a life of service no different from her mother and her mother’s mother before her, Lizzy’s world is upended by the arrival of a mysterious lodger. Interweaving the two narratives, Jo Baker—best-selling author ofLongbourn—brings these women, both struggling against their stations and their duties, vividly to life.“A treat to read.” —Daily Mail(London)

“What Jo Baker has done, with remarkable dexterity, is to make this ghost story intensely intimate; it is a haunting that is all about the struggle to communicate. . . . It is always the sign of a knock-out ghost story when . . . you find yourself caring for all the characters—whether they happen to be alive or dead. . . . The two narratives . . . curl elegantly and movingly around one another.” —The Daily Telegraph(London)Jo Baker was born in Lancashire and educated at Oxford University and Queen’s University Belfast. She is the author ofLongbourn,The Undertow,and of two earlier novels:OffcomerandThe Mermaid’s Child.She lives in Lancaster, England.Chapter 1

The light was fading. I was pretty sure I was lost. The car wasn’t used to that kind of driving and had started making a nasty whining sound on the bends. I hadn’t reached the Hall yet, hadn’t passed a house in miles. I pulled in at the side of the road, bumped up onto the grass, slóå