Nancy Drew Diaries 13 – The Ghost of Grey Fox Inn

Carolyn Keene's The Ghost of Grey Fox Inn is a spooky mystery for 9 year olds about a Southern wedding where something keeps turning up in the night.

What happens

Nancy, Bess and George fly to Charleston in South Carolina for a wedding. Bess's cousin Charlotte is marrying a TV news anchor, so it's being called the wedding of the year. Everyone's staying at the Grey Fox Inn, a grand old place with a curving staircase and moss-covered trees. George has read online that it's haunted (she's thrilled).

On the very first evening Nancy hears a scream from the bridal suite. Charlotte is on the floor. She says she saw a dark figure behind her in the mirror, wearing some kind of old-fashioned uniform. The door was locked from the inside.

Nancy isn't convinced. Charlotte wasn't wearing her glasses, after all. Then, in the small hours, Nancy wakes up and there's someone at the end of her own bed.

By breakfast half the guests have a spooky story to tell. And someone has rung the florist pretending to be Charlotte and changed her roses to yellow, which is supposed to be very bad luck. Is it a ghost? Or does somebody want this wedding stopped?

Nancy tells the story herself, so you're right there as she works it out. Bess and George are great fun together. Bess adores every flower and dress, and George would honestly rather find a ghost (or at least decent Wi-Fi). There are two families who can't stand each other, a groomsman who seems a little jealous and a list of suspects to puzzle over. Readers can have a go at solving it before Nancy does.

It's the thirteenth Nancy Drew Diaries book, but it introduces everyone from scratch, so it's a fine place to start. Nancy is old enough to drive a hire car and has a boyfriend back home, so it feels a touch older than some mysteries. The opening chapters are more spooky than scary.

What to read next

If they enjoy Nancy insisting she doesn't believe in ghosts, try The Haunting on Heliotrope Lane next. This time a girl starts acting very strangely after a visit to a supposedly haunted house in Nancy's home town (it opens with the friends chatting about a gory horror film, so it's a bit creepier).