Engaging gothic horror for young teens

''Does a child not recognise her own mother?'' wonders Lucy Sexton during the course of her story.

And well she might after the unexpected arrival of her mother's twin sister on the doorstep of their home changes her life.

Separated at birth, Aunt Helen is as poor and common as Lucy's mother Aliese is wealthy and refined, but when the pair are the victims of an horrific crime, it is not immediately clear which of them has survived. The fear of our most intimate acquaintances being replaced with a malevolent other is visceral and enduring.

In The Twin's Daughter, Lauren Baratz-Logsted has combined this theme with the normal adolescent disillusionment that accompanies the discovery of parental imperfection into an engaging gothic horror.

Ages 13+.

- Cushla McKinney is a Dunedin scientist.