A Stir of Bones is the stand-alone prequel to acclaimed fantasist Nina Hoffman's award-winning adult novels A Red Heart of Memories and Past the Size of Dreaming. It is every bit as remarkable, warm, and heartwrenching. Fourteen-year-old Susan Backstrom seems to have a charmed life—she's smart and beautiful, the only child of wealthy, attentive parents. But there are secrets inside her expensive house that Susan would never tell. One day, at the library, she overhears their housekeeper's son talking with some friends about sneaking into a nearby abandoned house. Much to her own surprise, Susan very much wants to join them—and soon, she's part of the best secret of all. The house has a resident teenage ghost. More important than that, the house itself is a living, supernatural thing, able to serve as a magic conductor. With the help of five new friends - -three humans, one ghost, and the House itself—Susan has what she needs to transform her life, if she dares.

Matilda "Matt" Black possesses the unique ability to speak with inanimate objects and witness the dreams of other people. Alone, yet never lonely, she s now found a kindred spirit in Edmund Reynolds a wandering witch of a spiritual quest to help those in need. Together, these two special people who live outside normal reality will embark on an odyssey of the imagination. They will look into the darkest depths of the past. And they will encounter things both wonderful and terrifying.

The Nebula and World Fantasy Award-nominated author of A Red Heart of Memories continues the spellbinding story of the wandering witch Matilda (Matt) Black, who possesses the ability to communicate with inanimate objects and see into people’s dreams—and her companion Edmund Reynolds, a young man with magic of his own who is only beginning to come to grips with his past and his powers… The two travelers have come to the town where Edmund grew up, and found shelter in the benevolently haunted house that was a refuge for Edmund and his friends when they were children. But the house begins to speak to Matt, urgently, telling her that she and Edmund have to leave, to seek out the long-scattered friends. For a darkness is rising, a dangerous, powerful entity. And the only chance of stopping it lies in the hearts of the lost children of the house…