Description
A CHILLING MIDDLEGRADE GHOST STORY SET IN A SPOOKY SANATORIUM DURING THE 1920S
The grown-ups all think she’s going to die soon-she can see it in their eyes. Still, when poor twelve-year-old Stina is sent to remote Raspberry Hill Sanatorium she can’t believe her luck. She gets to ride in a real motor car to the hospital, which looks like a magnificent castle hidden deep in the forest.
But as Stina explores the long, echoey corridors of her eerie new home, she begins to suspect that the building is concealing a dark secret. How did the old East Wing burn down? Why doesn’t her mother reply to any of her letters? And what are the nurses all so afraid of? Stina is determined to solve the mystery of Raspberry Hill-but as she edges closer to the truth, she finds herself in terrible danger…
My Thoughts
This exciting middle grade mystery will appeal to young readers who like a lot of drama and a little bit of ghostly activity in their stories.. It is dark, to be sure, but experienced readers who like scary stories will appreciate the spooky nature of the sanatorium and the danger in which Stina finds herself.
The ghostly element is actually pretty tame. However, children who are sensitive to scary stories involving humans (not ghosts) should avoid this. Foreshadowing adult horror, here the scariest monster is flesh and blood, not supernatural.
There are many potential triggers here: abandonment, confinement, deceitful adults, and chronic illness, all of which the author conveys with a smooth delivery of story. The main character, Stina, is a very adult-like child similar in ways to Dickens’ child characters who were born into poverty and lived in unimaginable conditions. Stina, while a “poor child,” is also a loved child from a solid family, which is the red thread throughout the story. I just knew her family would come through.
Publication Date: September 26, 2023
Published By: Pushkin Press
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy
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