Matilda Lockett is used to playing the role of Poor Dead Edna on stage with her spirit-medium aunt, Signora Valentina, and theatrical uncle Barnabus – but when they all decamp to Beauchamp Manor to deal with a most dreadful haunting, she discovers she really can see ghosts!

There she meets ghost boy, Edgar Wilde, who shares her love of supernatural snooping, and together they set about unravelling the case of The Ghosts of the Manor.

The Ghosts of the Manor by Lucy Strange is the first book in her new middle-grade series, Lockett & Wilde’s Dreadfully Haunting Mysteries. In this story, we meet Matilda Lockett who lives with her Aunt Signora and Uncle Barnabus (unmarried). The trio put on shows pretending to contact the dead. After one of these shows, Baroness Beauchamp of Beauchamp Manor approaches Matilda’s Aunt and asks her to come to her home and help get rid of a ghost that is haunting the folly where an art expert is working.

Aunt Signora takes along Barnabus, Matilda, and Colin the parrot to help her with a séance, but not everything is as simple as it first seems. Plus, it turns out that while Aunt Signora might be a charlatan, Matilda can really see and speak to ghosts. It is here that she meets her new crime-fighting partner, Edgar Wilde, a young ghost boy.

The book is exciting from beginning to end. The atmosphere that comes from the pages is wonderful and once you begin you will not want to put this book down.

Matilda is a fabulous character who is unaware of her gift until she sees Edgar at the Manor house. She is bright, intelligent, and a little stubborn. Edgar is a superb character too and you can’t help falling for this little ghost boy who is sad until he finds Matilda.

With amazing illustrations throughout, The Ghosts of the Manor is the perfect middle-grade story for readers who love mysteries. Whilst it might contain ghosts, they aren’t that scary. It is a truly awesome read and is definitely worth investing your time in. I can’t wait for further stories in the series.

Lucy Strange is an award-winning British author, based in the Kent Downs in England. Her books include critically acclaimed ‘The Secret of Nightingale Wood’, historical fiction ‘Our Castle by the Sea’ and gothic mystery ‘The Island at the Edge of Night’.

Lucy Strange’s books capture elements of classic children’s literature in a style that is engaging and accessible for today’s younger readers. Often inspired by folklore and fairy tales, Lucy combines historical settings with touches of magic and fantasy to create utterly convincing worlds in which anything might happen…