Oliver Brown reluctantly moves with his family from London to a derelict old farmhouse in Yorkshire (the Gullywith of the title), where he immediately befriends the girl KK and her dog, Jinx. She introduces him to the enigmatic Nonny Dreever, and with the house starting to be invaded by sinister little stones with mysterious markings on them, Olly is catapulted head-first into the adventure of a lifetime.

I was reading this with my son, and we both felt that whilst there are moments of genuine excitement in the story, the narrative is far too disorganized and lacks continuity, jumping about all over the place. It is very imaginative in parts, with some lovely ideas (the notion of the sinister little stones invading the house, the bookshop and its helpful, little rotund owner), and yet a lot of the time it is bogged down with far too much detail, slowing down the flow of the narration and not allowing much atmosphere to be built up. Having read Susan Hill's atmospheric and disturbing Woman in Black and The Man in the Picture: A Ghost Story, I was surprised at the often poor and amateurish style of writing on display here, sentences that extend over six or seven lines where I had to pause for breath half-way through, with six or more "and" or "or" (we counted), and with other editorial mistakes thrown in for good measure. The end is a complete anti-climax (we actually thought that surely there had to be an unexpected twist), as well as the solution to Olly's final task being handed to him on a plate, thereby missing another opportunity for a suspenseful chapter. My son and I agreed that the end felt very rushed, with my nine-year-old likening it to a piece of school work, when the teacher tells the class that there are only ten minutes left. I certainly won't be recommending this to anyone, and neither will my son; a generous three stars. ( )

The beginning of this story really drew me in. Any story set in England with kids tends to spark off memories of childhood. This started off well. Olly and his family move to Gullywith farm, they want a new begining. Things start to get a little strange when stones start appearing. Olly is set to look into it with the help of KK, a strange local girl and some eccentric local characters.

I did like the bookshop and the bookshop owner and some of the other pieces but the story just didn't flow right for me and the ending left me unsatisfied. There was potential there that just wasn't used and it left me feeling like I had missed something somewhere in the story. ( )