As you may remember, Gareth P Jones won the Blue Peter Book Award 2012 for his fantastic book, The Considine Curse. The Thornthwaite Inheritance is very much in a similar style, although it was actually published first.
Ovid and Lorelli Thornthwaite are orphaned twins. They live in an enormous mansion alongside their servants (both their parents were killed in extremely mysterious circumstances several years ago). This situation is quite unusual in itself. However, just to make things a little more exciting, they have also been trying to murder each other for the past thirteen years! Eventually Ovid suggests a truce, and to ensure that they both stick to it, the family lawyer arrives with a contract for them both to sign. If either of the twins dies before they are 16, the other twin will receive nothing from the will.
All is fine for a while, until the murderous attempts start up again. A bear in the forest, an electrocuted chess board, poison... it appears as if both twins will stop at nothing to get rid of their sibling. They eventually realise that something far more sinister is going on, but how will they be able to work together after all this time as enemies?
I loved this book. It's funny and full of energy, moving along at a good pace. The plot does get quite complicated towards the end, but never becomes too difficult to follow. I have just bought a copy of Gareth's new book, Constable and Toop, and I am really looking forward to reading it. If it is as good as the other two (and apparently it is), then it should be a lot of fun.
Mr Biddle
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