SOLVED. Ghost/Possession Story set in Long Island [s]

[Donna]

Hi All,

I am searching for a ghost/possession story set in Long Island maybe 20 years ago. It concerns a young family - members of which were named Rachel (mother), Abby & Emma (daughters). There was a father too, but I cannot remember his name. In the story either Abby or Emma become possessed by the spirit of another young girl, who turns out to be connected to Rachel somehow (maybe another daughter who had died earlier before the birth of the other two?)

I thought of Clare McNally as I have read a few of her books, but cannot find anything amongst them that quite fits this plot. I also do not think it is connected with the "Amityville Horror".

I think there could have been a young blonde girl on the cover.

[Tab]

Was this book targeted towards adults, young adults, or children?

[Donna]

I think this book was definitely aimed at adults. Probably a mass-market paperback.

[Tab]

Lullaby Here is a longer description (view spoiler)[ Here, it's a man (widowed Manhattan painter Judd Pauling, accompanied by daughters Emma, ten, and Addie, five), who travels with his exotic new wife, Rachel, to her isolated ancestral mansion (on the Maine coast)--in order to visit Rachel's dying mom, Priscilla. But the weird events that there disturb Judd and daughters--from Priscilla's coldness to Rachel's growing nervousness to menacing manifestations of what appears to be a little girl ghost--are strictly familiar stuff: especially familiar in one instance--as one night in bed, Emma finds that the hand she's holding belongs not to Addie, but to the ghost--because it echoes so strongly, unwittingly or not, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Guest tightens the suspense screws with vigor, though, as Judd learns not only that Rachel's a bigamist and former asylum patient, but that there is indeed a ghost haunting the mansion, one who--as Emma has claimed to deaf ears, but as we've seen in modestly spooky scenes set in a deserted nursery and elsewhere--has been periodically possessing Addie. At the climax, Judd learns from Priscilla that the ghost is Rachel's daughter, drowned years ago by the apparently quite mad Rachel while sailing--and that Rachel has now taken Addle--or is it the ghost? (Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 1990) (hide spoiler)]

And can I say the children on that cover look terrifying

[Donna]

That's it! Thanks so much. I can't wait to read it again. Can this please be moved to the Solved Folder - can I do this myself?

[Donna]

How do I move it to the Solved Folder?