Excerpt from Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She smiles,  bends over me, the tips of her copper hair  tickling my cheeks.  I can smell her Pond's face cream. "It'll take a lot more than a cab on Bruton Street to kill me. New  England genes, honey."

I stare at her swollen leg again, look away quickly, wishing I hadn't. The bruise  is making me feel  really strange. Nothing bad  normally happens to Momma. She doesn't get flu. Or headaches. Or the thing that  Mrs.  Hollywell, Matilda's mum, has that  means she must go back to bed after lunch  most days and sometimes can't  get up at all. On the upside,  if this  is the  bad thing that  was going  to happen to  Momma, then  I guess it's not that  bad. At least it's out of the way.

"Please  don't  worry about  me, Amber." She smooths my forehead with  the  pad of her thumb.
"The young  must never worry about  their parents, you know?  Worrying is a mother's job. Your  time  will come for all that." 

I frown  at the floor,  unable to join the dots  between being fourteen years old and  becoming a wife and  mother myself  What happens to your twin  when you marry? What would Toby do then?  It bothers me.

"It's all right." Momma laughs. "You've got a while yet." 

"Will you still  be able to ride  Knight?" I say, quickly  changing the subject. Knight is her Dutch Warm blood. The name makes him sound black, but he's the color of chestnuts.

"Ride  Knight? Are   you  kidding?" Momma sits  up  straighter, winces. "If I sit in this  chair for much longer  I'll go crazy. I can't wait to ride Knight. I'll damn well hop to Cornwall to ride him ifi have to."

Knowing Momma, this isn't as unlikely as it sounds. 

"In  fact, this evening I plan to talk  to your father about  leaving for Black Rabbit Hall sooner than normal." "When sooner?"

She  shuffles on  the  cushions, unable   to  get comfortable. "Next week sooner,  if Peggy can get the house  ready by then."

"Next week?" My head springs off her lap. "But  the Easter  holidays don't start for another two weeks."

"You can bring schoolwork if you want." "But,  Momma-"

"Honey, you spend  far  too  much  time  with  your  head  in a book, anyway. Missing a bit of school  is not going to hurt  anyone.  Too much school isn't good for any child."

'I'll fall behind."

 "Nonsense. Miss  Rope  says you're racing  ahead  of the  rest of the class.  I'm  not  in  the  least  worried. Besides,  you'll  learn far  more  at Black Rabbit Hall than in a stuffy old classroom  in Regent's Park."

"What sort  of things?" I ask doubtfully. "Life!"

I roll my eyes. "I  think I know  enough about  life at Black Rabbit Hall  by now, Momma."
 She looks amused. "Do  you, indeed?" "And  I'm getting too old for sandcastles."

"Don't be silly. One is never too old for sandcastles."

 My life has  been  full  of sandcastles. My first  memory is of To by, bent  over  on  the  beach,  frantically digging, sand  flicking over  his shoulder in a golden arc. (He is left-handed, I am right,  which  means we can stand close together and  not knock spades.)  When it's done  he sticks two razor-clam shells-"Us," he says and grins-on the very top: we are three years old.
"Apart   from   anything else,  the  air  in  London is  just  terrible," Momma continues. "And  the  relentless drizzle!  My goodness, will it ever stop?"

Excerpted from Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase. Copyright © 2016 by Eve Chase. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.