Alice-Miranda at the Palace

Jacqueline Harvey's Alice-Miranda at the Palace is a royal mystery for 9 year olds, set over one very grand weekend at Queen Georgiana's country palace.

What happens

It's Aunty Gee's jubilee weekend. (Yes, Aunty Gee really is the Queen.) Alice-Miranda, Millie, Jacinta and Sloane have all been invited. They've promised not to tell anyone at school, in case it sounds like showing off. Millie finds that very hard.

Evesbury Palace is about four times the size of Highton Hall. There's a garden party in a secret garden, a ball, a hunting tower on the hill and a tiny bolted door at the back of the wardrobe. Millie's first guess is Narnia. It turns out to be Jacinta and Sloane, crawling through from the room next door.

The palace staff are a treat. Mr Langley the head butler looks as if smiling might actually hurt. His cheerful under butler keeps getting glared at for grinning. And the Queen's identical twin grandsons come whizzing backwards down the banisters before anyone's even unpacked.

There's lots of family warmth too. Aunt Charlotte has brand new twins, and Lucas bravely volunteers to change a nappy. He won't be volunteering again!

But your reader knows from the very first pages that something isn't right. A man in a bowler hat takes a secret folder from a driver on a rainy night. Letters made from cut-out newspaper words start turning up at the palace, written as sing-song rhymes. And the head of the Queen's secret protection league is very jumpy indeed.

It's worth knowing that those letters threaten to take a little girl away, and it soon becomes clear the little girl is Alice-Miranda. Nobody tells Alice-Miranda, and her parents haven't been told either. Your reader isn't kept out of it, so even the garden party has a shiver running underneath.

A child who worries a lot about strangers might find that a bit close. For most readers it'll be the good kind of nervous, the kind that keeps the pages turning, and Alice-Miranda is surrounded by people looking out for her.

There's a lot of shared history by now. Caprice, the difficult new girl, is there in the background (her mum is doing the jubilee catering) and old friends pop up everywhere. A new reader will manage, but it's at its best if they already know the gang.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, Alice-Miranda in the Alps takes the same friends to Switzerland, to a very grand hotel run by a woman who clearly can't stand children.