The Scarlet and Ivy series is a fan favourite for a reason.
Sophie Cleverly really brilliantly blends mystery, detective work and proper thrills into an addictively good character combination of twin sisters.
Not to mention the fact that each book is a beautiful new colour (I know, I know, don’t judge a book by its cover, but it’s very satisfying when a series of books does something like that isn’t it?)
And the likelihood is if you’re here hunting for books like Scarlet and Ivy, you get the obsession. These books have fans in a chokehold that might even have them rereading over and over.
Whilst six books will have kept your reader going for a while, once they’ve uncovered the secrets of Rookwood School, the reader in your house will be gasping for something else.
Especially considering they’ve been through twin swapping, diary pages hunted down, Miss Fox dodged in the corridors…
So here are the books like Scarlet and Ivy I’d actually hand over. Mysteries with boarding schools, ocean liners and houses that are all locked doors, straight from the mystery shelf in our library.
What to look for after Rookwood
It’s tempting to grab anything with a magnifying glass on the cover. But Scarlet and Ivy has a particular vibe, and it’s worth knowing before you choose.
You need a closed world (a school, a ship, a house you can’t easily leave). You need at least one adult who is definitely lying. And you need a girl who keeps pulling at the thread after everyone has told her to stop.
Every book below has that. Some swap the school for a ship or a mansion, but the feeling stays the same.
Books like Scarlet and Ivy
A Girl Called Justice by Elly Griffiths
A Girl Called Justice
The closest match on this list, and the one I’d start with.
When Justice’s mother dies, her barrister father packs her off to Highbury House Boarding School for the Daughters of Gentlefolk.
She arrives to find brown uniforms, blondes ruling the corridors and a dead chambermaid nobody wants to talk about. Then a storm cuts the school off from the world, and the bodies start piling up.
For the reader who liked Ivy best. Justice is watchful in the same way, she gets a maddening nemesis (the angelic Rose), and she has to recruit reluctant friends to crack it. Great for 9 to 11.
The Secret Detectives by Ella Risbridger
The Secret Detectives
A murder in the middle of the night, and a captain who insists it never happened. No biggy…
Isobel Petty is orphaned and shipped from India to a distant uncle in England.
On board the S.S. Marianna she watches somebody being thrown overboard, but the captain is adamant that nobody is missing. So Isobel and two reluctant new friends have a double mystery to solve before the ship docks. Who was the murderer, and who on earth was the victim?
I’d happily give this to an 11-year-old and it’s also on our free shelf, so it costs nothing to give it a go.
The House of One Hundred Clocks by A.M. Howell
The House of One Hundred Clocks
Swaps the school for a house with one rule. The clocks must never stop.
It’s 1905, and Helena’s father has been appointed clock-winder to one of the wealthiest men in England.
Helena (plus Orbit, her parrot) soon finds the house is hiding more than clocks. There’s a ghostly figure, strange notes, and winding keys that keep disappearing, and she has to work out what it all means before her family pays the price.
If the hidden diary pages were your child’s favourite part of Rookwood, this is that same note-hunting itch in a grand Cambridge house. Age 10 and up.
Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: Peril at Owl Park by Marthe Jocelyn
Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen – Peril at Owl Park
A country-house Christmas with a secret passageway, a cursed emerald and a body where the presents should be.
Aggie has already solved one murder in Torquay. Now she’s off to Owl Park, her sister’s enormous manor, for the holidays, along with her sleuthing partner Hector and a gang of travelling actors.
Christmas morning delivers a corpse instead of presents, and Aggie’s deductions have to do the rest.
Aggie is a writer, a schemer and excellent company for a confident reader of 10 and up. If they like reading in order, The Body Under the Piano comes first and is in the library too.
Rose by Holly Webb
Rose
A bit of a change of pace. Secrets and a great house, with a mix of magic and mystery.
Rose has grown up in a dark orphanage wanting nothing more than an ordinary life. Then she’s taken on as a maid at Mr Fountain’s gleaming mansion, a house practically overflowing with magic, and begins to suspect she has a spark of it herself.
For the reader who has inhaled every mystery on this page and needs a breather that still feels like Rookwood (an orphan, a house with rules, secrets on every landing). Age 9, and a way in for a younger sibling with FOMO.
The one everyone recommends
Ask the internet for books like Scarlet and Ivy and it will answer Murder Most Unladylike. The internet is right. Daisy and Hazel’s secret detective society is the natural next step, with a 1930s boarding school and rather more actual death.
If Rookwood has started a proper detective obsession, our Books Like Murder Most Unladylike piece is great for that, and The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow from that list is the one I’d pull out first for this particular reader.
If it’s the boarding school they love
Some readers aren’t in it for the bodies at all. They’re in it for the dorms, the midnight feasts and the terrifying teachers.
If that’s yours, First Term at Malory Towers is the cosier classic (no murders, plenty of scheming), and our Books Like Malory Towers guide covers that whole world. And if what they actually loved was creepy corridors after lights out, our new Ghost Stories for Tweens piece leans into exactly that.
Where to start
If they’ve only read the first Rookwood book or two, no rush. The Lost Twin and all five sequels are in the library, so the series can be finished before anything new begins.
Every pick on this page is in there with them, alongside 3,000+ hand-picked books. A free account gets you 100+ free books (The Secret Detectives included), and the full library is £7.99 a month after a 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime.