A witty and entrancing story of a young woman trapped in a ramshackle English playhouse and the mysterious figure who threatens its very survival, from the author of Little 'Extraordinary... funny, troubling, playful, magical and vastly energetic' A.L. Kennedy Norwich, 1901: Edith Holler spends her days among the eccentric denizens of the Holler Theatre, warned by her domineering father that the playhouse will literally tumble down if she should ever leave. Fascinated by tales of the city she knows only from afar, young Edith decides to write a play of her own about Mawther Meg, a monstrous figure said to have used the blood of countless children to make the local delicacy, Beetle Spread. But when her father suddenly announces his engagement to a peculiar woman named Margaret Unthank, Edith scrambles to protect her father, the theatre, and her play-the one thing that's truly hers-from the newcomer's sinister designs. Teeming with unforgettable characters and illuminated by Carey's
