Wormwood Mire

This spine-tingling sequel to Withering-by-Sea sees Stella sent away to the moldering old family estate, where she discovers two odd cousins—and a mystery.

Eleven-year-old Stella Montgomery has always wondered about her family. What happened to her mother? And could she have a long-lost sister somewhere? Stella’s awful Aunts refuse to tell her anything, and now they have sent her away to the old family home at Wormwood Mire, where she must live with two strange cousins and their governess.

But dark secrets slither and skulk within overgrown grounds of the house, and Stella must be brave if she’s to find out who—or what—she really is…

Judith Rossell worked as a government scientist (not a mad scientist, a normal kind of scientist), for a cotton spinning company (which made threads for t-shirts and tea bags), and studied textile design in Scotland before becoming a full-time author and illustrator. She has illustrated or written nearly a hundred children’s books, including some by such internationally bestselling authors as Garth Nix and Jackie French. Jude lives in Melbourne, which is down in the bottom right corner of Australia, with a cat the size of a walrus. Visit her at JudithRossell.com.