Parliament of Rooks - Karen Perkins

Parliament of Rooks, the new historical paranormal novel in the award-winning collection of Yorkshire Ghost Stories, contrasts the beautiful, inspiring village of Haworth today with the slum – or rookery – it was during the industrial revolution: rife with disease, heartache, poverty, and child slavery in the mills.

In 2017, life expectancy in the UK was 81.

In 1848 Haworth, it was 22.

'Lush and atmospheric, this novel is dark and moody with supernatural elements and accurate historical details' - Review from the BookLife Prize by Publishers Weekly

Likened by independent reviewers on Amazon to the Brontë sisters, Edgar Allen Poe, Barbara Erskine and Nathaniel Hawthorne, Karen Perkins' novels are filled with unflinching honesty and an acute understanding of human nature. She explores not only the depths of humanity, but the depths of human motivation behind the actions and pain people inflict upon each other, as well as the repercussions of these actions not only in the short term, but also the later generations who live with the implications of the past. Karen Perkins won the silver medal for European Fiction in the 2015 IPPY book awards, and her fiction has been at the top of bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic, including #50 in the UK Kindle Store.

Nine-year-old Harry Sutcliff hates working at Rooks Mill and is forever in trouble for running away to the wide empty spaces of the moors – empty but for the song of the skylark, the antics of the rabbits, and the explorations of Emily Brontë. Bound together by their love of the moors, Emily and Harry develop a lasting friendship, but not everyone is happy about it – especially Martha, Harry’s wife.

As Martha's jealous rages grow in ferocity, Harry does not realise the danger he is in. A hundred and fifty years later, this danger also threatens Verity and her new beau, William. Only time will tell if Verity and William have the strength to fight off the ghosts determined to shape their lives, or whether they will succumb to an age-old betrayal.