Tania Unsworth’s Brightwood: Entrancing Thriller Will Keep Readers Guessing

In it, we meet Daisy, who lives with her mother, Caroline, and has never left the grounds of the once-magnificent estate. One morning, Daisy’s mother leaves and doesn’t return in time for her daily lessons, dinner, or even by nightfall. What concerns Daisy most of all, though, is that her mother didn’t return in time to make her Day Box. Each day, Caroline Fitzjohn makes a Day Box filled with odds and ends from the day as a way to preserve the day’s memories. Then she labels the box with the date and adds it to the mounting stacks of Day Boxes piling up in Brightwood—a ritual that began when Caroline was just a child.
As readers learn in the compelling prologue, Caroline’s parents and brother were killed in an accident aboard their yacht when she was only six years old—Caroline was meant to be aboard the boat as well but missed out on the trip after misplacing her doll’s shoe. When we get a glimpse of the life grown-up Caroline is living now with her daughter, Daisy, it’s clear that Caroline never recovered from the loss of her family as she attempts to physically cling to every memento and every memory. She has never brought another person into Brightwood and has never taken Daisy outside the gates. Caroline hoards the mountains of boxes and more bulk supplies and food than she and Daisy could ever consume—yet she regularly buys more every week.
Caroline’s tragic story takes a dark turn when she disappears without explanation, and this strange man, who claims to be a distant cousin named James Gritting, breaks into Brightwood while Daisy is there alone. Daisy has myriad imaginary and animal friends—at least they’re probably imaginary—but James is the first real person other than her mom that Daisy has ever even seen. However, Daisy is smart and strong-willed, and she quickly learns that he’s not to be trusted. Does he know something about her mom’s disappearance? Why does he speak of her mother in past tense and mumble something about “crazy”?
Daisy only has her pet rat, Tar; her imaginary friends; and an apparition of a girl named Frank who keeps popping up to help her get to the bottom of who James Gritting really is and what he’s doing at Brightwood. She has to sort through the clues buried in Brightwood Hall to solve this mystery, protect her home and herself, and find out what happened to her mother before it’s too late.
Unsworth’s beautiful and haunting descriptions bring Brightwood Hall to life and draw readers into Daisy’s world. Young readers will be rooting for Daisy as she prepares to fight for her home and flee if necessary in this entrancing story that will keep everyone guessing till the very end.
What do you think of Tania Unsworth’s Brightwood?