The ghost locket by Allison Rushby

Lolli knows the house and what it contains. It makes her anxious just going inside, but she knows that if she gets to the hearth in the downstairs kitchen, she will be safe. But Freya’s grandmother knows that Lolli has depths that she does not yet understand and although she can sense the ghosts that live in the house, she refuses to admit this. 

Lolli has promised herself that she will never again set foot in the house in Spitalfields but Freya has brought her from Singapore to help set up the next door house for Christmas. Freya is Loli’s mother’s best friend and she rescued her after Lolli’s mother died at her birth. Loathe to be ungrateful, Lolli agrees to go to London, convinced the she will never set foot in the house. But she cannot avoid it, even though she knows the older woman is unwell and needs to tell her things about the house before her illness overwhelms her. Lolli prevaricates, spending time with her new found cousins, avoiding any confrontation with Elsie, and while she is with them, picks up a book she knows well, but has never read, the story of the house. She leans of Madame LeNoir and Clara, the ideas of mesmerism, hypnotism and clairvoyance, used by the LeNoir family to dupe vulnerable people using Clara’s skills to rope them in. It is the ghosts of these two people that Lolli can sometimes see, one good, the other bad, but both wanting something of her.

So Lolli must talk to Elsie and she learns all that she knows.  She goes into the house, contacting Clara and learns more about this girl she thought had been murdered, and when she ventures further, feels the older woman’e menace, and so retreats to the kitchen. Here she tells Jada of what has happened and so enlists help from another source. And just when we all think the end is nigh, a twist occurs which puts Lolli on the back foot.

A wonderful mystery story, Lolli’s journey will have middle school readers entwined with the story of memories and ghosts. 

I loved Rushby’s trilogy beginning with The Turnkey set in the inner cemeteries in London and have read all that Rushby has published since, looking forward to each one. Tales about spirits take me to realms I usually do not visit, but they are told with such convincing settings and characters, that they are  are hard to put down.

Themes: Supernatural, Ghosts, Hypnotism, London, Haunted houses, Orphans.

Fran Knight