House of Secrets

Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini's House of Secrets is a spooky fantasy for 9 year olds about a family who buy a cliff-top mansion for a suspiciously tiny price.

What happens

The Walkers have lost almost everything. Dad was a surgeon until "the incident", and now they're renting a poky flat and eating a lot of takeaway. So when an estate agent calls about a house in Sea Cliff, the children expect the worst.

Fifteen-year-old Cordelia even translates the estate agent's sales talk for everyone. Charming means small. Rustic means you'll be sharing with bears. Woodsy means termites!

But Kristoff House is gorgeous. It perches on a cliff above San Francisco Bay with barrels slung underneath so it can float away in an earthquake (yes, really). There's a library to make any bookworm swoon, and it once belonged to an old adventure writer called Denver Kristoff.

And the price is about the same as a flat. Twelve-year-old Brendan smells a rat straight away. Why is there no For Sale sign? And where did the stone angel by the wall go?

Then a bald old woman in rags appears inches from his face and hisses that he doesn't belong there. She turns up again on moving day, all smiles and apple pie, as the next-door neighbour. Brendan is sure she's the missing statue. Nobody believes him, of course.

The three Walkers squabble constantly and it's very funny. Brendan is sarcastic about everything. Cordelia can't walk past a bookshelf. Eight-year-old Eleanor is desperate for a horse called Misty. They tease each other non-stop, but you can tell they'd stick up for each other in a heartbeat.

It's worth knowing what "the incident" was, because it's told early and plainly. Dad had been taking sleeping pills and sleepwalked at work. He woke up having carved a symbol into a patient's stomach. It's backstory, not something that happens in the story, but it's an unsettling detail for this shelf.

The scares build up too. The neighbour is properly creepy, and when she finally shows what she really is, it's loud and frightening. There's some mild rude language as well. A child who's easily spooked might find it a bit much. If your reader loves a shiver and a laugh together, they'll race through it.

This is the first of the House of Secrets books, so it's the right place to start.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, Welcome to Dead House has another brother and sister dragged to a dark old house that came far too easily, with a smiling estate agent and a dog that won't stop growling at him.