"He writes with such ease and simplicity, his stories, always unusual, are so exquisitely told, and when, as often happens, he takes you into regions not too far distant from fairyland, he has only to wave his wand to make you believe." - Ralph Straus, Sunday Times "Mr. Reid is one of the most remarkable living fantasists . . . [A]t once charming and a psychological tour de force." - London Mercury "[An] eerie, unusual, quite enchanting book." - Guardian The Retreat opens with a vivid dream about an evil sorcerer and his boy apprentice. The dreamer is Tom Barber, age 13, who, like many intelligent and sensitive children, moves between the world of everyday life and that of the imagination. "I pretend things, and all at once they become real," Tom says, and they become real for the reader as well, as we follow him over the course of one summer during which the lines between reality and fantasy are frequently blurred. In his depiction of Tom"s fantastic...