By Susan Cooper, Joseph Delaney, Berlie Doherty, Jamila Gavin, Matt Haig, Robin Jarvis, Derek Landy, Sam Llewellyn, Mal Peet, Philip Reeve, and Eleanor Updale
What do you get when a bunch of favourite children’s authors join forces and create an anthology of ghostly short stories? Haunted – a spectacularly spooky and uniquely crafted book – is what you get!
Across eleven tantalising and thrilling tales, the gothic effortlessly collides with the future, and the chaotic courageously confronts the rational, as we encounter a horde of ghosts and creatures prowling within the deepest depths of the pages. In Jamila Gavin’s The Blood Line, a lost child lurks in the reflections of a centuries old mirror. Robin Jarvis’s exceptionally creepy The Beach Hut tells of a drowned child who stalks the sandy shores, in search for their next someone to play with. And we meet a 21st century cyberghost whose date with death causes a technologic glitch in Eleanor Updale’s brilliant The Ghost in the Machine.
Susan Cooper and co. have each put a fresh, innovative twist on the ever-popular ghost genre, and, as with the magic of short stories, this chilling collection of stories can be savoured in time or devoured in one, yet each will hook and haunt your mind long after the last page is turned. Whilst the back cover promises terrifying and spine-tingling stories that will make you scream, shiver and gasp, I’d only go as far as calling them entertainingly eerie and mildly menacing, perfect though for the intended 9+ audience.
Haunted is a must read for Halloween!