When 12-year-old Eleanor Newton dies in an accident, she finds herself journeying down a mysterious river that takes her to The Underworld. She apprehensively embarks on her "afterlife" at The Great House, a boarding school of sorts for children who have died. The Underworld is captivating: always sunny and warm but also fractured, possibly by the sadness of the untimely deaths of its young inhabitants. Sstrange things have been happening to Ellie since she arrived: she knows something isn't right, and she doesn't want to be there. She desperately wants to get back to the world of The Living to meet her new baby brother, even if it means being a ghost. Can Ellie find a way out of the Underworld? And who - or what - will she be if she does? The Lovely Dark is another breathtakingly original story from Matthew Fox, author of The Sky Over Rebecca.