Vivian Van Tassel and the Secret of Midnight Lake

Michael Witwer's Vivian Van Tassel and the Secret of Midnight Lake is a spooky fantasy mystery for 9 year olds about a girl who moves into her late mum's creepy family home.

What happens

Vivian is twelve and she's angry. Mostly with herself. The last time she saw her mum, they had a huge row and Vivian stormed out, threatening to run away. Her mum got in the car to go and look for her. A tree fell on it.

Vivian's sure it was her fault. So she keeps people well away (it hurts less that way) and her temper keeps getting the better of her. The first chapter is a fencing match that ends with her jabbing the club bully with a blunt sabre, over and over, until the coach has to step in.

Then she and her dad move from Chicago to Midnight Lake. Their new home is a peeling old house stuffed with portraits that all look a little bit like her mum. Her new school used to be a psychiatric hospital and still has bars on the windows. A pale, grey-faced man stares at her in the diner. And the local paper is full of farm animals being torn apart in the night.

Oh, and she finds a silver pendant hidden under the floorboards of her mum's old bedroom. What's it doing there?

It's a proper creepy page-turner, but what'll stay with your reader is Vivian. She's prickly and very funny. She keeps a chart in her copy of Harry Potter comparing her life with Harry's (so far, Harry's winning). Her dad is lovely, hopeless at DIY and full of terrible jokes, and he's a sweet bit of warmth in all the gloom.

A heads-up on the dark bits. The prologue follows two hunters into a forest full of monsters, with mangled animal remains and plenty of blood. Vivian's grief and guilt are raw, and the car accident is described plainly (it happened a few months before the story starts, so it isn't a spoiler).

For a child who has lost a parent, that could be a lot to take in. For a reader who loves a creepy house and a heroine with a temper, it's a great find.

What to read next

If they're after another girl who gets blamed whenever anything goes wrong, try The Trials of Morrigan Crow. Morrigan's town blames her for everything from a spoiled fish to a heart attack, and the cook chalks each one up on a blackboard.