Beginning in the Devon town of Longstaple, in the same year that Napoleon’s ambitions in Russia came to a snowy and disastrous end, novelist Julie Klassen introduces Emma Smallwood: ‘The Tutor’s Daughter’. Set in a boarding school for the son’s of gentlemen, 16 year old Emma is object of the affections of Phillip Weston, most favoured pupil of her father, the headmaster.

It might look like the beginning of a classic early nineteenth century romance of young hearts, but fate and fortune – or lack of it, suddenly intervene. The boarding school fails financially and Emma, now set on supporting her father in his new and desparate employment as a private tutor, travels with him to the Cornish coast and the cliff-top manor of a baronet and his four sons.

Even then, when another story seems set to unfold in the classic pattern of love and romance, mysterious and dangerous things begin to happen. The piano is heard playing in the night, but the music room is empty. Fingers turn the doorhandle to her room at night, but no one is seen and pages disappear from her journal, only to reappear with a chilling illustration.

With her father’s new pupils, wrestle with problems and secrets of their own, one of them finds himself unexpectedly drawn to her. Emma must figure out which brother to trust and which to blame for the strange and frightening occurrences.