LETTERS FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE – EMMA CARROLL

We weren t supposed to be going to the pictures that night. We weren t even meant to be outside, not in a blackout, and definitely not when German bombs had been falling on London all month like pennies from a jar. February, 1941. After months of bombing raids in London, twelve-year-old Olive Bradshaw and her little brother Cliff are evacuated to the Devon coast. The only person with two spare beds is Mr Ephraim, the local lighthouse keeper. But he s not used to company and he certainly doesn t want any evacuees. Desperate to be helpful, Olive becomes his post-girl, carrying secret messages (as she likes to think of the letters) to the villagers. But Olive has a secret of her own. Her older sister Sukie went missing in an air raid, and she s desperate to discover what happened to her. And then she finds a strange coded note which seems to link Sukie to Devon, and to something dark and impossibly dangerous.