GENRE: Fiction / Scary
HONORS: None
REVIEW: At first Florence is intrigued to learn that she does have family and will not need to spend her days at the London orphanage. However, when she arrives at her great-uncle's house, Crutchfield Hall she discovers a great-aunt who does not like her, a cousin, James, who is bedridden, and the ghost of her cousin, Sophia, who dies a year before. Sophia is not resting peacefully and would like nothing better than for James to take her place. The story has some great action and scary sequences and deals with issues of sibling rivalry and revenge.
OPINION: I am a big fan of Mary Downing Hahn but felt a bit let down with this story. There were aspects of the book that I felt had a lot of potential and I found myself getting intrigued, but the climax felt rushed and the resolution left the reader hanging. If I were to recommend a book by Mary Downing Hahn I would steer the reader to Wait Til Helen Comes or The Old Willis Place which were stronger novels.
IDEAS: Because Mary Downing Hahn has written a number of scary books, a teacher could have students do a compare and contrast of several of them. The front leaf of the book talks about how Mary Downing Hahn blends "elements from classic ghost stories of the past". It would be interesting for readers to identify those elements.
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