The Addams Family meets The Westing Game in this exhilarating mystery about a modern magical dynasty trapped in the ruins of their once-grand, now-crumbling ancestral home.
***Three Starred Reviews***Twelve-year-old Garnet regrets that she doesn’t know her family. Her mother has done her best to keep it that way, living far from the rest of the magical Carrefour clan and their dark, dangerous mansion known as Crossroad House.
But when Garnet finally gets summoned to the estate, it isn’t quite what she hoped for. Her relatives are strange and quarrelsome, each room in Crossroad House is more dilapidated than the last, and she can’t keep straight which dusty hallways and cobwebbed corners are forbidden.
Then Garnet learns the family secret: their dying patriarch fights to retain his life by stealing power from others. Every accident that isn’t an accident, every unexpected illness and unexplained disappearance grants Jasper Carrefour a little more time. While the Carrefours squabbles over who will inherit his role when
(if) he dies, Garnet encounters evidence of an even deeper curse. Was she brought to Crossroad House as part of the curse . . . or is she meant to break it?
Written with loads of creepy atmosphere and an edge-of-your-seat magical mystery, this thrilling story reads like
The Haunting of Hill House for preteens. Perfect for late-night reading under the covers.
A Kirkus Reviews' Best Middle Grade Book of the YearA Junior Library Guild Gold Standard SelectionAn Evanston Public Library Great Book for KidsMaine Student Book Award List Selection
Dianne K. Salerni has written many books for children and young adults, including state-award nominated series The Eighth Day and Junior Library Guild selections
Eleanor, Alice, and the Roosevelt Ghosts and
Jadie in Five Dimensions. She attended the University of Delaware and the University of Pennsylvania before teaching fourth and fifth grades for many years. Now Dianne spends her time hanging around creepy cemeteries, climbing 2,000-year-old pyramids for book research, and volunteering at her local rescue animal shelter. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family. Visit her at www.diannesalerni.com.
★ "[A] standout, genre-bending dark fantasy. . . . Salerni enlivens classic horror tropes and gothic ambience, complete with a sentient manor house, blending wry humor with atmospheric descriptions. . . ."
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review ★ "Salerni’s gothic charmer is deliciously creepy and atmospheric, building an immersive fantasy world that gently explores intergenerational trauma. . . . An enchanting and evocative tale."
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review ★ "An inventive take on the supernatural that skillfully blends drama, humor, magic and mystery. Salerni's large cast of characters is delightful and each family member is enough of a rounded individual that readers should easily keep track of them all. The puzzle, spook factor and complex family dynamics make this a perfect book for upper middle-grade readers and fans of
The Addams Family."
—Shelf Awareness, Starred Review "Interconnected mysteries keep readers turning pages, and when they all converge, the payoff is spine-chilling and satisfying."
—The Horn Book "Fans of
The Haunting of Hill House or Schwab’s
Gallant will surely stay up late at night reading this heart-pounding novel."
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books "A fun page-turner that touches on the deeper themes of family, identity, and what it means to pay for the sins of the past."
—Booklist
"Creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky, this is the family story you just aren’t going to want to avoid. Hand it to the kid who can’t make up their mind on what to read next."
—A Fuse #8 Production "Spooky, dark, and enthralling. I couldn't put it down until every mystery had been solved." —Cassie Beasley,
New York Times bestselling author of
Circus Mirandus
