When a family emergency takes her mother to Scotland, Aveline is sent to the seaside cottage of her schoolmarmish aunt. She lives in Malmouth, a creepy harbour town with wild weather and unsettling Halloween traditions.

Aveline is sure to be bored senseless, but then she unearths a strange book of ghost stories from a secondhand bookshop… The black rooks croak, the cold rain falls, the door handle twists and rattles. Is there something more than fiction in the old book of tales?

To her horror, Aveline realises that solving the mystery is much more than an amusing pastime. It’s a matter of life and death.

It’s not often I recognise the exact moment a book hooks me, but with The Haunting of Aveline Jones it was a single sentence in Chapter 3: ‘It sounded like a tiny spade being dragged across concrete.’

I loved the final confrontation scene, and the relationship between Aveline and her mysterious friend is really touching.

Lovely black-and-white illustrations throughout by Keith Robinson. I particularly liked the chapter-break artwork with the quotes from Primrose.

The Haunting of Aveline Jones is a gently spooky middle-grade novel with a gripping finale - and a sequel: The Bewitching of Aveline Jones (2021).

WHAT TO READ NEXT

If you liked Aveline Jones, try Chris Priestley’s Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror.