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The Black Feathers
The Black Feathers
Mar 12, 2026 3:41 AM

Author:Rebecca Netley

The Black Feathers

'The perfect book for a cold winter’s night...an immersive gothic tale, dark and mysterious. Truly haunting!' ANITA FRANK

'An atmospheric, eerie read’ PRIMA

‘A chilling and atmospheric tale…you are drawn into a haunting mystery that will keep you guessing’ Yours

Where ghosts tread, black feathers fall . . .

When Annie marries widower Edward Stonehouse and arrives at Guardbridge, his estate on the Yorkshire moors, she thinks she has finally put darkness behind her.

She is mistaken . . .

Edward's sister, Iris, still lives in the family home. A taxidermist and medium, she urges Annie to watch out for black feathers - claiming that they mark the spot where a spirt has visited.

At first, Annie dismisses her warnings. But, before long, an eerie almost haunting feeling takes over her.

What exactly happened to Edward's first wife? Why is Iris so disturbed?

And should Annie be watching for signs from the dead - or rather is she the one being watched?

SET ON THE YORKSHIRE MOORS IN THE 1800S, THE BLACK FEATHERS IS A GHOSTLY TALE OF MAGIC AND WICKEDNESS.

'Reminiscent of Jane Eyre and The Silent Companions... Spooky, twisty, with a surprisingly emotional pay off' KATE COLLINS

'Looking for an atmospheric read to while away the autumn nights? This Gothic ghost story delivers intrigue and suspense in spades' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

'Chilling, haunting and incredibly moving' BARBARA COPPERTHWAITE

'With echoes of Wuthering Heights and Rebecca...a spine-tingling ghost story' IRIS COSTELLO

‘If Halloween whets your appetite for Victorian Gothic, the author of The Whistling delivers once again.’ – Saga

‘A chilling gothic thriller’ – Woman’s Own

Praise for THE WHISTLING

'Wonderfully atmospheric, genuinely eerie' GUARDIAN

'A wicked twist . . . brilliant, scary, clever' 5***** READER REVIEW

'Gripping, chilling and very, very satisfying' DAILY MAIL

Reviews

If Halloween whets your appetite for Victorian Gothic, the author of The Whistling delivers once again.

—— Saga

A chilling gothic thriller

—— Woman's Own

An atmospheric, eerie read, perfect for autumn

—— PRIMA

A chilling and atmospheric tale…you are drawn into a haunting mystery that will keep you guessing

—— Yours

The Black Feathers has everything you could want in a Gothic novel, underpinned by a thrilling sense of menace. Reminiscent of Jane Eyre and The Silent Companions, the wild setting of the windswept Northern moors was a perfect backdrop for the rising tensions within Guardbridge, a grand old house in the finest tradition of English Gothic, keeping all sorts of secrets. Spooky, twisty, with a surprisingly emotional pay off, The Black Feathers is a wonderful way to spend a dark autumn evening

—— KATE COLLINS

Chilling, haunting and incredibly moving

—— BARBARA COPPERTHWAITE

The perfect book for a cold winter’s night...an immersive gothic tale, dark and mysterious, in which it seems one must fear the living as much as the dead. Truly haunting!

—— ANITA FRANK

Looking for an atmospheric read to while away the autumn nights? Set in a big house on the Yorkshire Moors, this Gothic ghost story delivers intrigue and suspense in spades

—— GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

Atcmospheric, ghostly and gripping. A gothic tale of magic and wickedness

—— Yorkshire Life

The Black Feathers is such a glorious autumnal read. With echoes of Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, it is both a spine-tingling ghost story and a powerful meditation on grief. A beautifully written tale that gripped me from the very first page.

—— IRIS COSTELLO

Electrifying. Tom Crewe's forensic love of the physical puts the body back into history and makes the past a living, changing place

—— Anne Enright

An excellent debut . . . It's extraordinary to think that this impeccably crafted, lyrically phrased and muscular book is Crewe's first . . . a brilliant evocation of the radical politics of turn-of-the-century Britain

—— Michael Donkor, Guardian

Emotionally vivid and erotically charged, The New Life brilliantly reveals a 'seething and boiling' world of 'loneliness and anger and lust,' as Crewe's complicated, compelling protagonists battle the restrictive mores of the day

—— Daily Mail

Powerful themes and lovingly polished prose . . . a fictional debut of rare quality and promise

—— Daily Telegraph

Intense and precise . . . It is refreshing to find any contemporary novel, let alone a debut, which is first and foremost one of ideas

—— Financial Times

[An] excellent new novel

—— Independent

'[An] intricate and finely crafted debut novel . . . The New Life brims with intelligence and insight, impressed with all the texture (and fog) of fin de siècle London'

—— New York Times

'Crewe distinguishes himself both as novelist and as historian . . . He has, more unusually, found a prose that can accommodate everything from the lofty to the romantic and the shamelessly sexy'

—— New Yorker

Unflinchingly bold . . . Crewe's language is striking in its originality, his protagonists are colourful and passionate, and their principles are brilliantly drawn

—— i paper

Sexy, cerebral and moving

—— Mail on Sunday

'Atmospheric . . . Extraordinary . . . Crewe's taut prose is shot through with descriptive vividness'

—— James Cahill , TLS

Exhilarating . . . An adroit novel of ethics

—— New Statesman

'Lyrical, piercing . . . The New Life is a fine-cut gem, its sentences buffed to a gleam . . . [Crewe's book] brims with élan and feeling, an ode to eros and a lost world, and a warning about the dangers ahead'

—— Hamilton Cain, Washington Post

'Crewe deserves applause for his vivid scene-setting . . . There's much to admire in this meticulously researched, boldly envisioned debut'

—— Prospect

'Nothing less than remarkable . . . A beautiful, brave book that reminds us of the terrible human cost of bigotry; this is a novel against forgetting'

—— Michael Schaub, Boston Globe

'Rich and engrossing . . . blending the graceful ambiguity of literary fiction with the deftness of a page-turner . . . A smart, sensual debut'

—— Kirkus (starred review)

A few established novelists continue to write first-class literary fiction on LGBTQ themes... The debut novel by Tom Crewe...reveals a new talent in the field. It is underpinned by extensive research... [with] a great story at its heart.

—— Literary Review

The New Life drives with a satisfying pace and a pleasing sense of both conclusion and open endings... how impressive it is that Crewe has synthesised a coherent and compelling fiction from his elements

—— Critic

Superb . . . Remarkably sensuous and intimate

—— Spectator

Crewe demonstrates rare promise in this beautifully crafted story about two real-life pioneers who tried to make a case for homosexuality in Victorian Britain... Crewe brings this era pungently to life

—— Sunday Times

[An] incredibly assured debut... A fresh take on the historical novel, with desire at its heart, written with a charged certainty that the personal is political

—— Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2023*

A rich, panoramic novel stuffed with vivid characters, heartaches and hazards... [a] brilliant debut

—— Sunday Times, *Summer Reads of 2023*

Crewe's beautiful novel is filled with nuance and forensic insight into love. Deftly recreating the atmosphere of 1890s London, The New Life is a tour de force of intelligent and empathetic fiction

—— UK Press Syndication

A debut of impressive skill... Crewe is a trained historian and it shows: the period detail is exquisite

—— Daily Telegraph, *Summer Reads of 2023*

The novel is full of exquisitely drawn detail, right from the opening scene, making the moral and social dilemmas at the centre of the story dynamic and compelling

—— GQ

[A] pitch-perfect debut novel

—— Spectator, *Books of the Year*

Sometimes there comes along a debut novel that feels like an immediate classic. Tom Crewe’s The New Life is just such a book. It’s a beautifully crafted, seductive story about illicit desires in Victorian London

—— Sunday Times, *Sunday Times Book of the Year*
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