Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen

Geri Halliwell-Horner's Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen is a spooky school mystery for 10 year olds, with a ghost, a locked case and a lot of grief at its heart.

What happens

Rosie is thirteen and has never felt she belongs anywhere. At her London school she's the clever one, the ginger one, the one who gets picked on. When a teacher's copy of Jane Eyre goes missing, it turns up in Rosie's rucksack (she didn't take it).

Then she's called to the head's office. She thinks she's in trouble. She isn't. A police officer is waiting to tell her that her mum died that morning.

By the evening she's in a helicopter heading for Bloodstone Island. All she has is a suitcase and a small locked red case from her mum, which she mustn't open until she's with Miss Churchill, the head.

The island is home to Heverbridge School, opened by Queen Elizabeth I in honour of her mother, Anne Boleyn. Miss Churchill is away. The smooth deputy head, Mr Hemlock, takes the red case off Rosie within minutes. And a girl called Ottilie locks her in a portrait gallery all night as an "initiation".

Then, at three in the morning, a woman in a green velvet gown walks straight out of the wall.

It's a proper page-turner. History runs all the way through it (Emmeline Pankhurst, Mary Seacole and Charlotte Brontë all hang on that gallery wall). And there's a big contest ahead, the Falcon Queen Games, which Rosie decides she has to win once the island is in danger.

Rosie is easy to root for. She's prickly and brave. She and her mum had a secret signal for bad days, a pineapple emoji, and Rosie keeps sending them after the news. That little detail will probably get you right in the throat.

A heads-up for parents. The death of Rosie's mum comes in the very first chapter, and Rosie is raw with grief in the chapters that follow. There's bullying, a ghost at night and plenty of talk about Anne Boleyn's execution. Rosie is a teenager too, older than most readers on this shelf, and she swears mildly once or twice.

For a child who has recently lost someone, this could be a lot. For a reader who likes their mystery with real feeling and a good dose of history, it's very satisfying.

What to read next

If they fall for Rosie, they'll probably love The Trials of Morrigan Crow. Morrigan also gets the blame for everything that goes wrong around her, until she's offered a way out to a magical city and has to win her place there.