The new novel by the unpredictable John Boyne is an amazing and strange story about a mysterious estate in which a young girl alone tries to deal with a series of ominous events. Eliza was born into a decent but impoverished family. After the death of her mother, her father became sad and soon followed his wife, catching a fatal cold on the way to a performance by Charles Dickens. Eliza was left alone in the whole world and, having come across a newspaper advertisement for a governess vacancy, she decided to change her life - to leave London for Norfolk County. At Godlin Hall, two pupils are waiting for Eliza, who are dodging any questions about where they are and when their parents will finally appear. Every day Eliza encounters more and more strange things and as a result realizes that the old house is the abode of something mysterious and frightening. And no prudence, no sobriety allows Eliza to deny the terrible truth about the nature of this ominous invisible inhabitant. Inspired by Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, and the works of Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle, John Boyne wrote a gothic novel. However, Boyne’s novel is not only a literary and plot attraction; the book also raises very modern themes that are not at all typical of Victorian prose.