Linda has the power to make words sing their story and this is all achieved by amazing dedication and care, and the most wonderful ear for language. She is without doubt an extraordinary writer, and we are privileged to publish her. And as Linda's publisher for the last six years, we are so excited that this book has won the Costa 2006 Children's Book Award. There is no more deserving winner.
Bella Pearson and David Fickling 

SET IN STONE
Love and possession. Art and immortality. Convention and defiance. Ambition and desire.

Linda Newbery’s third novel for David Fickling Books is an absorbing, atmospheric, reader-teasing mystery in the tradition of Wilkie Collins and the Victorian Gothic novel, set in 1898.   Fourwinds, a country house close to the South Downs, is the pride of its owner, wealthy widower Ernest Farrow.   Samuel Godwin, a gullible young artist employed by Farrow as painter and tutor, is irrevocably drawn into the lives of the three young women at Fourwinds:  demure Juliana; Charlotte Agnew, governess and companion, who reveals little of her thoughts and aspirations; and Marianne, the younger daughter, passionate, wilful and unpredictable.   Intrigued by Marianne to the point of obsession, Samuel little suspects how thoroughly he is being manipulated.
It’s not only the people who fascinate.  Samuel is equally entranced by the house itself: Fourwinds, beautifully designed and furnished in Arts and Crafts style, a house to delight and surprise with the attention paid to every detail.   What, though, can account for the absence of the West Wind carving, and the disappearance of its creator, the gifted sculptor Gideon Waring, whose name must never be mentioned in Mr Farrow’s hearing?   Awed by Waring’s skill, Samuel longs to meet him and to see more of his work.   But in doing so he uncovers secrets that are both horrifying and dangerous to all ...
Narrated alternately by Samuel and by the self-effacing, secretive Charlotte Agnew, Set in Stone will grip and enthral its readers.