As far as 12-year-old Toby Tallis is concerned, spells, magic and witches are definitely, definitely not his thing. So when his autistic sister, Shaz, persuades him to help investigate an 'enchanted' castle she's found, he agrees, hoping to prove there's no such thing. But once inside, the weird strangeness of the place makes them want to leave. Quickly! Unfortunately, they do so through different doors... ... and from then on, their lives are never quite the same again...

Helen Knightly has spent a lifetime trying to win the love of a mother who had none to spare. And as this electrifying novel opens, she steps over a boundary she never dreamt she would even approach. But while her act is almost unconscious, it also seems like the fulfilment of a lifetime's buried desire. Over the next twenty-four hours, her life rushes in at her as she confronts the choices that have brought her to this crossroads. 'Exhilarating, unforgettable ... This is a remarkable novel in which every word is vital, each nuance felt ... Candid, gut-wrenching, at times horribly funny and often beautifully touching ... The genius which guides The Almost Moon is its absolute, horrible, multiple truths; its staggering clarity' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times 'As moving as it is unquestionably gripping' Observer 'As gripping as it is strange and wild ... My God, it grips ... I lay awake half the night, feverishly hoping both that it would never end, and that it would all be over soon' Rachel Cooke, Evening Standard

Why were so many religious images and objects broken and damaged in the course of the Reformation? Margaret Aston's magisterial new book charts the conflicting imperatives of destruction and rebuilding throughout the English Reformation from the desecration of images, rails and screens to bells, organs and stained glass windows. She explores the motivations of those who smashed images of the crucifixion in stained glass windows and who pulled down crosses and defaced symbols of the Trinity. She shows that destruction was part of a methodology of religious revolution designed to change people as well as places and to forge in the long term new generations of new believers. Beyond blanked walls and whited windows were beliefs and minds impregnated by new modes of religious learning. Idol-breaking with its emphasis on the treacheries of images fundamentally transformed not only Anglican ways of worship but also of seeing, hearing and remembering.

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.