Moonbranches - Hardcover

Rundle, Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0027771903 ISBN 13: 9780027771909

Publisher: Atheneum, 1986

Synopsis

While spending the summer in the house where her aunt is housekeeper in the early days of World War I, fourteen-year-old Frances becomes involved in the house's violent past when she is "visited" by the long-dead twin of the owner's sinister son, seventeen-year old Martin.While spending her summer with her aunt, the housekeeper to Sir Richard and Lady Hallowes, at their brooding country estate, Frances Lang stumbles into a bizarre mystery involving a mysterious heirloom and the ghost of a boy who drowned years before

About this title

Reviews

Grade 5-8In this Gothic tale, 14-year-old Frances is sent to live with her aunt, the housekeeper of Hallowes, a Scottish mansion that seems to be under a cloud of doom. Soon Frances learns that years before, a son, Simon, died myste riously as his evil twin Martin watched. Or did Martin kill his brother? Although Frances is worried about her father, who is fighting in World War I, she is drawn into the mystery of Hallowes and its family. She is contacted by Si mon's spirit and decides to help him find justice. With her help Martin is stunned, and Simon's spirit is able to take over Martin's body. Now, with the good twin restored, all is well. Rundle's style is so forced and her characters so wooden that her story never comes to life. The cover creates a sense of mys tery that never comes through in the book itself. For a similiar historical su pernatural tale, recommend Elizabeth Pope's The Perilous Gard (Houghton, 1974); for contemporary supernatural drama, there is Margaret Mahy's excel lent The Changeover (Atheneum, 1984).Anne Connor, Los Angeles Public Library
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Atheneum
• Publication date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0027771903
• ISBN 13: 9780027771909
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1