Emily Critchley Books in Order

Lou feels out of place at school and within her increasingly chaotic family after her father announces an affair. Assigned to look after a new classmate, she discovers an unexpected friendship while everyone around her struggles with the approaching divorce.

Twelve-year-old Patrick finds a talking polar bear in his family’s chest freezer while storing Christmas decorations. Monty is extraordinarily well-read and permanently hungry, leaving Patrick to puzzle out his arrival and feed an enormous new friend on pocket money.

Nell grows up in the shadow of her mother’s artistic ambitions and struggles to belong after their move to Lincolnshire. Leaving home for Brighton promises independence, but a dangerous relationship forces her to reconsider the life she is building.

At eighty-two, Edie glimpses the friend who vanished when they were teenagers, apparently unchanged after decades. As her memory falters and her family dismisses the sighting, she determines to uncover what happened to Lucy and the secret they once shared.

In 1938, lonely schoolgirl Gilly is delighted when Violet Claybourne invites her to spend Christmas at Thornleigh Hall. The family’s faded grandeur captivates her, but a terrible incident reveals troubling loyalties beneath the sisters’ welcoming appearance.