'Do you know the old superstition about children born around the New Year?—how they had no souls, so they had to steal the souls of others?'

Melaniki, a small village in the Greek islands, is breathtaking, nearly extinct, and full of mysteries—a lonely house near the ravine, abandoned by its inhabitants, who left behind all their possessions; a madwoman, who responds to the tolling of the church bell by announcing her lunacy to the world; the sinister Hugo, who preys on those receptive to his charms.

No one can really guess the nature of the ever present evil, and fourteen-year-old Tamsin can only watch as her flighty mother and alcoholic stepfather struggle in their vain attempt to pursue an idyllic existence. It is Tamsin who proves sensitive to the manifestations of supernatural evil in Melaniki and who, young though she is, sets about confronting these unknown forces.

'. . . reminiscent of the stories of M. R. James, or Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.'—British Book News

Children of Epiphany originally appeared in 1983 and is now republished to coincide with the publication of Frances Oliver's Ash-Tree Press collection Dancing on Air.