Jaine Blackman finds the perfect dark mystery to mull over during the holidays

Winter nights are the perfect time to curl up with a good book and if it offers some mystery and a threat of darkness, so much the better.

Larkswood, by Woodstock author Valerie Mendes, fits the bill perfectly.

“One house, one family and a lifetime of secrets”, reads the blurb on the front of the book, which neatly sums up what’s inside.

Think darker Downton as the lives of three generations of the affluent Hampshire family unfold.

We meet them on the eve of the Second World War when Louisa Hamilton, newly presented at Court but struck down by glandular fever, travels to Larkswood to recuperate.

There she meets her grandfather Edward for the first time.

He has reluctantly returned from India and appears haunted by memories from his years growing up in the family home.

The two hit it off and, for a while, all seems well. But more than 40 years previously, in the glorious summer of 1896, disaster had struck and as Louisa, intrigued by the discovery of an old family portrait, delves deeper, she discovers secrets which had torn lives apart.

The novel is Mendes’s first for adults; she has previously written for children and young adults.

The seeds were sown way back in 2002, when Mendes was in Hampshire researching her second teenage novel.

During a chance 20-minute conversation with a stranger, she heard about a sanatorium that had been built on a plot of land in some local woods.

One night, the hospital caught fire and burned to the ground. Years later, the same thing happened to a discotheque which had been built on the site.

“I felt my skin prickling with shock at hearing about the double tragedies — and yet I also felt excitement,” recalls Valerie.

“What if I wrote a story about a plot of land that had been contaminated, corrupted, made evil? And was then miraculously healed, and made clean and pure again?”

After writing another three books for teenagers, she returned to the idea and began Larkswood.

It took her seven years until she was finally happy with the story.

The end result is a very readable family drama with enough mystery to keep you hooked.

It has a bit of a Gothic feel... but the ghosts and monsters are all of the human kind.

Larkswood by Valerie Mendes is published by Orion