Today we have received a very special letter to share with you from Edward Fitzberranger, a ten year old ghost who lives at Inchwood Manor. Check out his letter below and read about his antics in The Spirits Series books by Rob Keeley. The tenth anniversary edition of the first book, Childish Spirits, is out now! – This post contains affiliate links.

Stipley Hall
Somewhere in the Home Counties

26 July 2024

My dear readers,

I’m most awfully pleased that Rob, this author chappie, has given me the chance of writing to you in person. I’m not terribly clear on what a blog is, or what Whispering Stories is – it sounds like when my cousin Patience came to stay, back in our Victorian childhood, and we used to read stories to each other very quietly after lights out, so as not to wake my governess. Then I would shout: “BOO!” and wake the whole house! Hee hee.

I’d like to thank everyone who’s read the adventures I’ve had ever since my old friend Ellie, a modern girl but none the worse for it, came to live at Inchwood Manor, my ancestral home. My ghost had been there ever since 1897, and so had that of my terrifying governess, as we found out. This is the story Rob told ten years ago in the work known as Childish Spirits – jolly good title, I always felt. Since then, we’ve had lots more adventures together, told in the books The Spirit of London, The Sword of the Spirit, High Spirits and The Coming of the Spirits – and I’m pleased to say Ellie is now grown up, married and although we can’t meet any more, the spirit world still keeps a friendly eye on her.

Ten years. Crikey. So, it’s time to celebrate our anniversary. I wanted a jolly party in the nursery at Inchwood, with cakes and lemonade and songs around the piano, but Rob and my guardian Henry pointed out that a new edition of the book would mean we could invite lots more people. Especially an eBook, which chaps could download onto their Kindlings, or KneePads, or whatever they’re called. So, we set to work.

The anniversary is in two days’ time, and you can now buy or borrow the Childish Spirits special edition. As well as lots of extra bits of story we didn’t have time to show you the first time (including when I had some jolly good fun with a coach party visiting the Manor), there’s also a snazzy new front cover by Simon Goodway, and, even more excitingly, four Spirits short stories that have never been published as a book before! You can read about my last Christmas with Patience and my ancestor’s ghost that turned up; a medieval encounter with Sir Francis Fitzberranger and Sir Anselm when they were boys; Ellie’s battle with the ghost of an opera singer; and best of all, an adventure here at Stipley, ‘The Third Door’, which my friend Mary and I had all to ourselves! All in all, it’s well worth the three and six, or whatever they’re charging for it.

Hope all Spirits fans will want to accompany us on these adventures old and new!

Happy anniversary all!

Hoping this finds you as it leaves me,

Yours,

Edward James John Fitzberranger

P.S. BOO!

“The truth will set you free.”

When Ellie and her family move into Inchwood Manor, Ellie quickly discovers strange things are happening. Who is the mysterious boy at the window? What secrets lie within the abandoned nursery? Who is the woman who haunts Ellie’s dreams – and why has she returned to the Manor, after more than a century?

Ellie finds herself entangled in a Victorian mystery of ghosts and tunnels and secret documents – and discovers that life all those years ago isn’t so different from the world she knows today…

First published in 2014, this five star-reviewed children’s novel was longlisted for the Bath and WriteMentor Children’s Novel Awards and nominated for the People’s Book Prize. This is a tenth anniversary special edition with new material and also includes four Spirits short stories never before published in book form. A must for all fans of the Spirits series and Rob Keeley’s work.

Rob Keeley was born in Wirral, Merseyside, UK. Writing his first story aged seven, his first short play aged eleven and first being published at fifteen, he wrote for several magazines before his first book for children, The Alien in the Garage and Other Stories, was published in 2011. He has since written three more collections of children’s stories, one of which, The Dinner Club and Other Stories, was longlisted for the International Rubery Book Award. He has now published all five novels in his Spirits series, the first of which, Childish Spirits, gained him a Distinction for his MA in Creative Writing before being longlisted for the Bath Children’s Novel Award and the WriteMentor Award and nominated for the People’s Book Prize. The second novel in the series, The Spirit of London, was highly commended for the Independent Author Book Awards in 2016 before book four, High Spirits, won at the succeeding Georgina Hawtrey-Woore Awards in 2018. He has published two standalone children’s novels (The Treasure in the Tower and The Teacher Who Knew Too Much) and two picture books for young children. In 2022 his first novel for adults Death At Friar’s Inn was e-published. He has also written a stage play Mr Everyone and has BBC writing experience with Chain Gang and Newsjack for Radio 4 Extra.

Rob has studied Screenwriting and Filmmaking, has been a judge for the IGGY and Litro Young Writers’ Prize and is a supporter of the Children’s Media Foundation. His books have been used in schools, libraries and at literary festivals and he is in demand for his author workshops, which one teacher even described as “inspirational”! During lockdown he was Children’s Writer in Residence at the Stay at Home Literary Festival. Most recently, he has been seen at the Wirral Arts Festival and World Book Day events. In 2024 he was nominated for a Fearless Freelancer award at the Northern Cultural and Education Awards, for his workshops with young people. Also in 2024, Childish Spirits celebrated its tenth anniversary with a new, special edition.