Once upon a chime...

Every day at four o' clock, an enchanted twilight sweeps over Vale Argantel. Strange things happen under its eldritch influence: mists boil up out of the ground, rain pours out of a cloudless sky, and the roses grow wild and fey. Such is the way of things.

But when her friend falls through a magic mirror and disappears, Margot realises something's changed. An ancient enchantment has gone awry, and chaos quickly spreads. Magic-drunk, confused and hampered at every turn, Margot must find a way to reclaim Oriane — and before anybody else disappears.

But for Oriane, things are stranger still. Lost in a topsy-turvy world, how can she ever find her way home? For she's adrift in a place very like Argantel — eerily familiar, yet strangely different; a place which follows none of the usual rules...

"One part Eleanor Farjeon, one part Lord Dunsany, one part Vera Chapman, but mostly her unique self, Charlotte English is the first new (to me) writer to make me excited in a long, long time. Her faultless prose by turns ascends with the lark, leads you down secret paths like the willow-the-wisp, bewitches you into bewilderment, and sparkles with eye-bedazzling wonder, taking you at last to an enchanted ending that leaves you as drunk on words as her protagonists on ensorceled rose-wine. Please, milady, more!" - Mercedes Lackey