In a Welsh village where it rains every day in August, fourteen-year-old Cadi Hopkins begins to ask questions about her dead father and sister and why she’s not allowed to go to the lake.

The story she had grown up with was straightforward. Her sister drowned in a tragic accident and her mother couldn’t bear to talk about it. Then her father died too, and talking about that freaked her mother out so much it was frightening. She was already pregnant with me when he died. No wonder she hates me.

Cadi lives with her mother, Violet, with whom she’s locked in an intensified teenage daughter/mother battle. Cadi’s aunt/Violet’s sister-in-law, Lili, lives next door and acts as a surrogate mother to Cadi. Lili also has a contentious relationship with Violet.

From early in the book, magic makes its presence felt: the ghost of Dora, Cadi’s sister ‘sits at the base…