The Secret of the Hidden Blood-Red Key

David Farr's The Secret of the Hidden Blood-Red Key is a spooky, tender fantasy for 10 year olds about a girl who has already saved her country and now has to look after her grieving dad.

What happens

It follows The Book of Stolen Dreams and picks up once that adventure is over, so it's very much a book to read second.

Rachel Klein and her big brother Robert are famous in Krasnia now. The tyrant is gone, people wave at Rachel on the tram, and everyone is wearing bright colours again.

But home is hard. Their mum has died, and their father has come back from a prison camp so thin and tired that he mostly stays in bed. He won't read. He asks Rachel to take his medal off the wall. Robert is always out with his revolutionary friends, so Rachel is the one making the tea and trying to cheer him up.

Then a strange boy on a park bench shows her a key exactly like the blood-red one she keeps hidden in her bedroom. He tells her she's now one of the Keepers of the Key, and that the key will tell her when she's needed.

Weeks later someone breaks into the library's Rare Books Room. And her key starts to glow.

What I love about this one is how sad and funny it manages to be at the same time. Rachel's closest friends are a whole attic full of ghost painters, the Meyers, who are very touchy-feely for spirits (their hugs are never warm) and who butter crumpets with suspicious speed whenever she asks an awkward question. They're hiding something about a family member called Daniel. And whatever it is, it has something to do with the gate to the Hinterland, the land where dead souls roam.

There are lovely small moments too. Robert buys a beret to impress a girl and looks like he's got a squashed cherry on his head.

The sad part is really sad, though. Rachel's dad is grieving, it's slow, and the book doesn't pretend otherwise. A reader who has lost someone, or lives with a parent who's struggling, might find it close to home. For a reader who likes their magic with real feeling in it, that's exactly what makes it land.

What to read next

If they want another girl looking after a heartbroken parent while something from the world of the dead comes knocking, try Momo Arashima Steals the Sword of the Wind. Momo's mum never recovered after her dad was lost at sea, and now a death hag is hovering over their house.