Watching the watcher - Gaye Hicyilmaz

Henry was looking forward to staying with his great uncle. He was fantastically eccentric - a famous naturalist, his parents said - and within the grounds of his home in the country he had a sort of private zoo. And anyway, Henry hated the idea of the usual family holiday. He felt stifled and bored by his family and he was pretty sure the feeling was mutual. He'd be on his own most of the time at his great uncle's, and that suited him just fine. But Henry wasn't alone. There was that girl, Stella, who alarmed and fascinated him, with her fierce red hair and direct manner. And there was something else, too: something that trod the gravel softly at night and wasn't one of the freely roaming animals; something that howled; something his great uncle was trying to hide from him . . .

Gaye Hicyilmaz lived in Turkey for many years, much of that time in the city of Ankara, which provided the setting for her first children's book, Against the Storm. Inspired by a true story in the Turkish press, it was first published in England, where it was shortlisted for the Whitbread Award in the children's fiction category and was runner-up for the Guardian Children's Fiction Award the same year. After leaving Turkey the author moved to Switzerland with her four children and for seven years lived in the small town of Horgen, which gave her the background for The Frozen Waterfall. She now lives in Kent in England.