Product Description

Caroline 'Laska' Darnell is a perfectly normal 19 year-old: worried about boyfriends, acne and exams; passionate about dance music and piercings. But one day a terrible suicide attempt sees her admitted to the Retreat, a groundbreaking medical centre in the woods. To her horror, she recognises the Retreat from her nightmares about an old building haunted by ghostly dogs, and she realises that something is very wrong with the institute. She digs deeper and realises that her family are intimately connected with the history of the Retreat. Before he died, Laska's father left her a dog tooth pendant and mysterious diaries and documents. Through these, Laska discovers that the Retreat was once an asylum that almost burnt to the ground in 1902. Her research brings her to the attention of medical officer Dr Smith, and his friends Fitz and Trix. Smith is utterly fascinated by Laska's waking dreams and prophetic nightmares, but if Laska is can't trust her own perceptions, can she trust Dr Smith?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #482803 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

doctor who comes down to earth
After so many adventures on a cosmic scale in a never ending story arc, it's great to get a book set on earth in a small location with a small cast of characters. An admirable tightness of scale that the range has lacked for too long.

And this is a very well written volume with it. Focusing on the human characters and how they perceive the doctor and his friends this has some very good characterisation and reads like a decent novel in it's own right.

It's not quite perfect as when the monster finally comes on stage at the end it's a very dull creation, although the author has clearly worked hard to make it an interesting and original one.

But don't let that put you off. This is one of the best books in the range