Poor Tom's Ghost

By Jane Louise Curry

When the Nicholas family first sees the derelict old house near London that has been left to them in Aunt Deb's will, they are sadly disappointed. Thirteen-year-old Roger's disappointment is greatest, since, having moved place to place all his life with his gifted actor-father, he longs for some measure of stability. Then Roger and his father discover under peeling wallpaper and rotted paneling traces of a much older, more graceful house, and their misgivings disappear— until, that night, the house is filled with a sound of wild grieving that Roger traces to an empty room.

Only Roger— and later his small stepsister Pippa— sees the ghosts, among them that of Tom Garland, a well-known actor in Shakespeare's time. But Roger's father, playing Hamlet in the famous National Theatre, is caught up, unknowingly, in Tom's old tragedy. It is a frightened Roger who has to risk his life to find a way to mend the past before the present becomes its tragic echo.

POOR TOM'S GHOST, dramatic, wholly convincing, a fascinating intermingling of the centuries, portrays a family whose uncertain bonds are tested and strengthened by a threat from the past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: KMWillis Books
• Release date: Jul 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781625360168

Reviews for Poor Tom's Ghost

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent story! Curry is one of the authors I keep forgetting about, and then rediscovering with yet another great book. Roger is great - the child forced to be the responsible one, and not allowing himself to trust that maybe they've got a family (his father recently married, a woman with a daughter) that will last. He's putting his hopes on a house his father just inherited...which turns out to be something rather amazing, under a _lot_ of crud, and with...complications. Shakesperean ghosts - with echoes in current time, Roger's father is also an actor and currently doing Hamlet. A complicated mystery that gets solved in dreams that aren't dreams... Very solid and complicated characters, in both times, and a lovely (and perfectly reasonable) assortment of bits of evidence of what happened back then. I found it particularly delightful because I lived in the area for a while, and a lot of the territory they cover (frequently on foot) is at least vaguely familiar to me. The unspooling at the end is a lovely way of fixing things. A great book, and now I want to read more of hers.