Fifteen-year-old Danny and his informal guardian Philippa move out to the country, to a remote old house.  The people in the village are very weird about the house, for reasons they won’t explain, and it is indeed a mysterious house: there are names and dates carved into one of the doors; the cat, Islington, keeps acting strange; someone comes asking for Mary Peachy, whose name is carved into the door along with other names from four hundred years ago.  Oh, and – eek! – Danny and Philippa keep coming home to find that somebody has lit a fire in the house while they were gone.  Danny makes friends with a local artist’s daughter, Lark, and they all become set on solving the mystery.

I wish I’d read this years ago!  It was such an enjoyable read.  I love the image of the names and dates carved into the door.  But just generally I like Gothic novels.  I read Elizabeth Peters’s The Camelot Caper, which is a spoof of Gothic novels, before I read very many actual Gothic novels, and I always think of it when people are in remote, spooky houses in books.  I am always in the mood for a good Gothic novel.  Northanger Abbey really charms me, and I love Daphne du Maurier also.

Thanks for this, Ella!

Anyone have a favorite Gothic novel they want to recommend me?  Or another William Sleator book I shouldn’t live my life without reading?

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