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The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall by Mary Dowining Hahn
3.5★'s
When twelve-year-old Florence boards the crowded horse-drawn coach in London, she looks forward to a new life with her great uncle and aunt at Crutchfield Hall, an old manor house in the English countryside. Anything will be better, she thinks, than the grim London orphanage where she has lived since her parents' death. But Florence doesn't expect the ghost of her cousin Sophia, who haunts the cavernous rooms and dimly lit hallways of Crutchfield and concocts a plan to use Florence to help her achieve her murderous goals. Will Florence be able to convince the others in the household of the imminent danger and stop Sophia before it's too late?This is advertised as juvenile literature but I needed a "children's or Young adult " book for another challenge and found that this one also fit this challenge and I had read Mary Downing Hahn's work before and found that she was an expert at weaving a goose bump raising ghost story no matter how how you are. In the beginning you feel sorry for Sophia...the little ghost...but before long you discover she is far from the angelic creature idolized by Eugenie. Sophia proves to be spiteful, manipulative, and determined to avenge her death. While some of Hahn's literary references will likely go over the heads of the targeted age group, most readers will be too absorbed in the chilling atmosphere of the tale and Sophia's terrifying influence on the living world to care. A deliciously spine-tingling tale that even the most "mature" readers will enjoy.
