There is something about October and upcoming Halloween that gives people special need to read horror stories. I am so glad that I've started this book at the best time I could, which gave to this already amazing book a touch of perfection.

We follow a story set in 1917, while Britain is still at war. A young woman, Stella, who lost her fiancee is unable to cope with this loss and her family tries to help her. Refusing to be put into strict medical care, she tries to find a distraction from her grief. She is invited to keep the company to her sister in a nearby mansion. However, right from the beginning, something with the house is not right. As both sisters try to find out what is happening around them, we get to experience a quest for discovering family secrets that were supposed to be hidden forever.

I was surprised how much I've enjoyed this book straight from its start. There is something about the style of the author that worked for me. She writes in a way that feels almost historical and suits the setting perfectly. The choosing of words and expressions felt very authentic and gave the reader an even better experience from the book.

I absolutely adored Stella, as I found her to be one of the few reasonable characters in the horror genre in general. She was strong and independent, even though her grief was making each of the days difficult to cope with. I loved the passages from her past, where we could see the whole complexity of her character. Her story was written in a way, where I could properly understand her actions and sadness and I felt proud of her progress throughout the book.

The concept of haunted houses is pretty common and was used many times before. However, you can feel when it's done well. I believe it was in this book. I enjoyed the mystery of this particular one with all the atmosphere and secrets surrounding it and the author kept my interest till the very end.

To sum it up, I admire the author for writing such a well-written debut. I love how she builds the plot and characters and I would be definitely interested in reading more from her.

Stella Marcham is grieving for her beloved fiancé, Gerald in the dying days of WW1 when she gets an unsettling message from her sister who is living with her mother in law during her (the sister's) first pregnancy.
Strange things are happening and Stella, sceptical at first, is determined to find out what is going on.
What follows is a beautiful, absorbing tale of ghosts, secrets, lies, love and hate. What a debut! I was unable to put this book down for long as the pace quickened throughout the story.
We have a great talent from Anita Frank to tell a tale so poignant and believable, even to people, like me, who don't believe in ghosts. By the end of the book I was in tears, so powerful was the narrative.
A great book for long winter nights in front of the fire in the comfort of your own home.

In 1917, after the recent death of her fiancé, Stella Marcham is invitied to visit her pregnant sister, Madeleine Brightwell, at the family's country mansion. Before long, Stella realises all is not well. Her sister is fearful and constantly on edge, claiming she can hear a child crying at night - yet no child lives there. Stella also begins to experience supernatural phenomena and is convinced the house, Greyswick, is haunted by the spirit of a child.

I adored this book and thought it was an amazing debut by author Anita Frank. It was beautifully written - each sentence, paragraph and page a pleasure to read. The imagery was remarkable and I genuinely felt transported in time to England during the First World War.

Although quite slowly paced and relatively descriptive, I surprised myself by thoroughly enjoying it. Once in a while you're left with the feeling you've read something pretty special. For me it was this.

Stella was a nurse in a field hospital when her fiancee is bought in badly injured and sadly dies. She has a breakdown and is sent home. Her sister, Madeleine, is pregnant and staying with her mother-in-law at Greyswick.
Stella is invited to stay with her but when she arrives, she finds Madeleine in a terrible state. She is upset by unexplained goings on within the house and soon Stella starts to hear and feel sounds and noises.
she starts to investigate what has happened within the house in the past. What are the secrets? and can she solve them but to what cost.

A spooky thriller full of strange goings on. Very complex and complicated but resolved in the end. Good characters and interesting tale,lots of twists

Stella Marcham is grieving. She has seen evil in the blooded fields of the great war and that same evil has taken the love of her life. On the brink of being sent into an asylum for ‘rest’, Stella is approached by her sister’s husband Hector, asking her to keep Madeleine company in her last months of pregnancy at his home estate Greyswick. He mentions Madeleine’s unease and bad feelings about the house and hopes Stella’s company will help settle his wife back to her happy self.

How wrong he is! Stella arrives at Greyswick, excited to see her sister’s new home, happy to lend her hand and provide comfort to the one person that stood by her when she lost Gerald. But there is something wrong. With the house, the people living in it. From the first day, when she discovers a toy soldier in her bed, things grow stranger and stranger. There are secrets buried deep within the walls of the house and it is up to Stella and her unwilling accomplice maid Annie to uncover them and set them free.

Brilliant book – I’ve always loved Wilkie Collins’ Woman in White and can see clearly the inspiration here. But this novel is spookier and even tense and reading in the dark of my bedroom wasn’t the best of my ideas. The characters were very well portrayed within the time period lending an authenticity to the story. Let’s be honest, most old manor houses look haunted, so Greyswick lends a perfect hand in setting the scene. I loved the opposites of opinions and beliefs that were given to us in the characters of Annie Burrows and Tristan Sheers. The believer and the sceptic-scientist, both willing to go the distance to prove their own truths.

Bravo – love this book and will certainly look out for more books by Anita Frank. This will be in my top five books I’ve read this year.

Thank you very much to TBConFB, the author and NetGalley for this book.

The Lost Ones is a stunningly haunting gothic novel set during the First World War in 1917. It is steeped in the atmosphere of the time period with our heroine, Stella, dealing with all consuming grief following the death of her fiancé in France. Franks touches on so many pertinent topics which are just as relevant today as they were back then: mental health, family, grief and a country dealing with a state of unrest. The writing is rich with beautifully flowing prose and the characters are well fleshed out - flirting with, but never succumbing to, the stereotypes typical of the gothic novel. It's a thoroughly enjoyable book and a spectacular debut.

I enjoyed this novel, which gradually wove together ghostly happenings, a hidden mystery, and the psychological impact of the First World War. It was an easy and atmospheric read, but I did feel at times that the mystery was a little melodramatic and some of the turns that the plot took seemed like a bit of a stretch - solving this mystery wasn't quite as satisfying as it could have been with a more careful structuring of the clues. That being said, there's lots to enjoy here, and I particularly liked the discourse around madness and gender - if a woman says something, would you believe it less than if a man did? How much proof do we really need before we allow ourselves to believe the unbelievable?

It's been a while since I've read a historical ghost story but this was worth the wait, with welcome echoes of Susan Hill and Daphne du Maurier. Impeccable scene-setting and memorable characters provide the perfect foundations for a cracking winter read, and once I reached the second half of the book I couldn't stop. The Lost Ones is a beautifully written period page-turner,

An enjoyable read which, if not especially spooky or surprising plot wise (look I am really difficult to please with ghost stories plus I have this nasty habit of working a mystery out within three chapters) was still very engaging. The characters were compelling but what sold it for me was the well-researched historical setting. I’ve seen it compared to The Silent Companions which is horrendously unfair to this book – The Lost Ones is far better than that! An author to watch on the mystery front.

What a fantastic debut novel by Anita Frank. I’m not normally big on ghost stories but this book had a bit of everything. It centres on Stella Marcham who is in mourning following the tragic death of her brand new fiancé, Gerald, during The Great War. The whole book is set in 1917 and at the confidential request of her brother-in-law, Hector, Stella goes to visit her married sister Madeleine who is ‘out of sorts’. Hector is in the army but based in London so Madeleine has been sent to stay at her mother-in-law’s house, Greyswick, in the country. Lady Brightwell is widowed but still very much in charge of the house. As soon as Stella gets to the house there are strange happenings and she finds that Madeleine has experienced them too. It is not clear if these happenings are supernatural or the work of meddlesome humans. Stella is determined to get to the bottom of it but has a hard time convincing those around that she is not imagining it or suffering from mental illness.

The story wove around and around and I loved it all – the house, the characters and the plot. I couldn’t put this book down but equally didn’t want it to end. It would make a great film. There was a lot of interaction going on between the gentry and servants which I really enjoyed. A great debut novel and I will be looking out for more work from Anita Frank.

With thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin UK for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

If you enjoy a ghost story, then this one is for you. Set around the time of the Great War, it has a feel of a true gothic tale in the genre of Du Maurier and Bronté.
I loved the paranormal feel to this, disturbing and yet compelling. At the heart of the story, a soul that cannot find rest because of past wrongs, committed against those most innocent.
Treat yourself to this tale - surround yourself with ghosts and unravel the mystery.

A ghost story with everything you'd expect ... chilly atmosphere, imposing house, usual haunting scenarios with an added "who done it" thrown in for good measure.

A readable and well written novel but lacked suspense and the shocks I was anticipating and hoping for, nothing really 'new' when it comes to this genre.

In truth the book is quite predictable, I'd already guessed all twists and turns before they happened.

Personally I found the first half of the book just went on too long, I understand the author has to set the scene but too much time was taken up with describing the setting and characters.

Unfortunately it didnt stand out from the crowd as I'd hoped it would.

Thanks to netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

One of the best ghost stories I’ve ever read and how fitting that it’s due for publication on Halloween. Stella a VAD in the first world war, loses her fiancé. In fact he dies in the field hospital where she was stationed. She’s deemed to be unstable, even months after his death and her return to her parents’ home. She visits her pregnant sister, now staying at her in-laws’ residence, taking her strange little maid Annie.

Something awful had happened in that house. Little by little, we discover the possibilities then finally the reality. The tension mounts and little incidents from Stella Annie’s past become more important. I found this occasionally almost claustrophobic in its intensity and beautifully written. I’d recommend this book wholeheartedly.

The lost ones is a great novel with a atmospheric gothic vibe.

Set in 1917 Stella Marcham has returned from nursing in France after the sad death of her fiancé in the war, her family can not understand her all consuming grief as in their eyes her engagement wasn’t official and with many men dying in the war she should just pull her self together, so when her brother in law asks her to stay with her pregnant sister at his family home she knows she has to try to move on with her life and help her sister. But things are not what they seem at Greyswick, her sister is convinced something is wrong, she keeps finding toy soldiers and hearing a child sobbing at night and no one believes her and she is frightened for herself and her unborn baby.

Soon Stella and her maid start hearing things and Stella finds her own sanity is in doubt, can she prove to everyone what lurks in Greyswick’s past before her family have her the proof they need to have her committed.

A beautifully written novel that is perfect for a cold winters evening curled up on the sofa. Enjoy

Oh wow, I absolutely loved everything about this book, it was such a brilliant, enthralling read. After a few chapters in I'd really got into the style of writing. It is very evocative of the time. The author never slips at any point throughout the book, keeping up the style of speech and the narration completely in keeping with the era and of the aristocracy at the time. I couldn't quite remember whether it was a timeslip book when I first started it, but really hoped it wouldn't move into the present. Luckily the whole story is set in 1917 so we keep the delightful dialogue right the way through to the end. It's very Downton Abbey esque I imagine, as I have never watched it.

It is just so many genres all rolled into one, which kept me completely riveted throughout. Supernatural hauntings, a story of loved ones lost to the first World War and at such very young ages. It's a story of upstairs and downstairs, the gentry and their servants. Family betrayal, jealousy, all wrapped up in a mystery that Stella Marcham, the protagonist and narrator of the story must solve.

It's very sad and moving in parts, yet there's always the macabre, ghostly happenings to draw you in and cause shivers up the spine as you whip through the pages. It all culminates in shocking revelations and a mystery solved. There were quite a few OMG's being uttered out loud by me as I got towards the end of the book.

It really is absolutely brilliant and I would highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone, no matter what your preferred genre; I defy anyone not to enjoy this story. I would definitely read any future books by this author, but its such an amazing debut, that I just don't see it being superseded by anything better - however if a future book is as good as this, then that will be good enough for me. Fantastic!

Thanks to netgalley for the chance to read this book.

When Stella loses her fiancé in the First World War she comes back home grief-stricken. Her sisters husband asks her to accompany her pregnant sister to his mother’s estate.

Stella takes her maid Annie with her and they discover hidden secrets and lies within the estate.

The book had me hooked from the beginning and I couldn’t put it down. Will definitely look at other books by this author.

This book has two of my favourite things! Historical fiction set in WWI with a creepy edge.

I did really enjoy this story even with the twist being predictable. Great characters that had me hooked and wanting to keep those pages turning.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

A really nice cosy book for the colder nights.
A ghost story come murder mystery, it’s the perfect winter read.

Thank you to netgalley.co.uk for giving me a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I am surprised by this book, I thought it would a simple historical fiction dealing with the last year of the First World War, 1917. But there's this spooky twist throughout the novel which intrigued me, I'm telling you I could not put it down!
I think that this book is the perfect book for Hallowe'en, especially if there are readers who love to read these types of books around October time, personally I'm not a fan but reading this book really changed my perspective. I loved the characters and the fictional village, I think the author has done an amazing job giving the whole novel a spooky, gothic vibe that really sucked me in.