Tale of genuine terror

Stories that freeze the blood and genuinely make the hair stand up on the back of your neck are hard to come by these days. A lot of so-called 'frighteners' promise much but deliver little in the way of real fear and apprehension.

The main weakness of novels that want to frighten, but merely make the reader laugh out loud, is the implausibility of the storyline. To be genuinely scary, a story has to be believable.

There are no unintentional laughs in Cliff McNish's ghost story Breathe. This is the real McCoy, a shiver-inducing story that grips you with icy fingers and hangs on, even when you have read the last page.

Breathe is a spooker of the highest order. You have been warned. Just look at the blurred face staring out of the window at you on the cover. That is nothing compared to what lies inside.

Jack has always felt that he has had an emotional connection with people who lived long ago and whose spirits remain in the human world. He can sense when a place is not empty. He is quite at ease with the connecting gift he possesses, but at times this worries Sarah, his mum. She just wants her son to grow up normally like other boys. She does not want him connecting with people who are dead.

After the tragic death of his father, Jack and his mother move to an isolated farmhouse in the country. Sarah wants them both to begin a new life. She is worried that Jack would try and connect with his dead father if they stayed in their old home. But there are dangers waiting at the farmhouse that neither Jack nor Sarah could predict.

The old farm house is the home of four ghost children who want to draw Jack to them. They know that this newcomer is someone special who feels their presence, and who wants to know more about them. But the spirits of the four imprisoned children are growing weaker because something is feeding off them. Can they get through to Jack before it is too late and they are sucked away?