Will Stanton has been sent to Wales to recover from a serious illness. He desperately wishes to recover something else – the secret of the grail, which he once knew but has now forgotten. His Welsh cousins are welcoming, but there is menace in the form of their neighbour Caradoc Prichard, who is strangely curious about Will’s visit. Soon Will must face his most dangerous adversary yet: Brenin Lwyd, the Grey King, who dwells at the summit of Cader Idris. Aiding him is Bran Davies, a strange white-haired boy with his own destiny to fulfil. The spectacular Dysynni Valley in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, forms the setting of this fourth adventure in the Dark Is Rising sequence. In a new preface, Susan Cooper describes how her Welsh ancestry, and her love of Welsh epics, found their way into The Grey King through ‘that peculiar alchemy that happens in the unconscious mind of a writer