Today we welcome author Rob Keeley with his guest post Raising the Spirits (again)… in which he tells us why he decided to return to the spirit world with his new book ‘The Fighting Spirit‘ – This post contains affiliate links.

I’ve been saying it for five years, at signings and school workshops.

“I’m so glad you liked the Spirits novels… no, there won’t ever be another one. That’s it. Ellie’s story is finished. She’s happily married, and I’m going to leave her there. And Edward [my Victorian boy ghost] is safe and sound at Stipley Hall, with Henry and Mary’s ghosts to look after him. I’m doing new books now. Would you like me to sign one for you?”

(I’ve just remembered the elderly lady in a bookshop who responded with: “Do you know where the butcher’s is?”)

“I said I’d only ever do five. A trilogy of five, as Douglas Adams called it. No, no… absolutely no more…”

But, as Ellie found out, the spirits don’t let you go.

Edward has already been back this year, celebrating the series’ tenth anniversary. He even wrote a ghost post… sorry, a guest post, for this very website. He found his way into the introduction for the tenth anniversary special edition of Childish Spirits (it’s still available to download, and if you haven’t read it, what are you waiting for?). And, though I love him, he can be very persuasive as only a spoilt child can. And I started to think… I do miss that spirit world, with its dark voids and smoke and pillars. And I miss taking child characters, and child readers, to other times. We never quite made it to World War Two, or Henry the Eighth. Maybe there is more to tell…

One thing of which I was certain: I wasn’t going back to Ellie, her family or Journey back. Their story was done. But did Edward really need them? The thing about ghosts is… they tend to outlive everyone else.

And then I remembered what Gillian Cross did with The Demon Headmaster series – reboot it for a new era, with new children. Maybe Edward could meet some new friends…

Then, out of my imagination came Ruby, bored at half-term and looking for some fun, and Jayden, the cheeky paperboy who moves in next door. He’s seen something very strange on page 13 of the morning paper…

Would you like to adopt a ghost?
Young spirit, born 1887, seeks kind home to haunt…

And, once these two kids adopt Edward, there’s no going back.

He’s changed a bit, since the days of Childish Spirits. He’s learned from Ellie, and is more adventurous. He’s left Stipley, and won’t say why. He’s been studying for his Spirit Levels, to become a more advanced ghost, and is learning how to time-travel. When Ruby and Jayden join him on a trip to the Swinging Sixties, they miss by a quarter-century and land in World War Two. Bombs are falling and a sinister plot is afoot, involving a royal kidnapping and two classic villains from the Spirits series…

And that’s all I’m saying, for now. So you’ll have to read the brand-new Spirits novel, The Fighting Spirit.

I’ve enjoyed my return to the spirit world. I hope you will, too.

“Would you like to adopt a ghost?

Young spirit, born 1887, seeks kind home to haunt. Gentleman by birth. Good company. Gets on well with other children. Jokes and shocks a speciality.

If interested, place outside your home three twigs, in the shape of an arrow, pointing to your front door…”

Ruby and Jayden get more than they bargained for, when they adopt the ghost of Edward Fitzberranger. He’s a boy from Victorian times, has left his haunted house without permission and is living in Ruby’s wardrobe.

When they find out he can time-travel, they find themselves in the Second World War, with bombs falling and a royal kidnapping plot. Simon Fitzberranger and his Anti-War Party offer a solution – but is he all he seems?

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.