THE HEADLESS DOLL

Three friends help a ghost find her missing doll.

Jen is spending the summer with her aunt on Maine’s Big Rock Island while her naturalist parents research spiders in Costa Rica. Aunt Liv has a business making and repairing dolls that draws in customers worldwide. She runs it out of her home, historic Pratchett House, named after the sea captain who built it. Legend has it that the island is haunted by the ghosts of Arthur Crunk, the lighthouse keeper responsible for the shipwreck that killed Capt. Pratchett, and young Pearl Pratchett, who died after catching a chill. She’d gone down to the shore looking for her father and found a headless doll that washed up from the wreck. After some unexplained phenomena at the house, Pearl appears to Jen. Jen, assisted by new friends Joe and Maddie and by Edith, an eccentric local woman, tries to help. They set themselves the task of reuniting the head and body of Pearl’s doll, but both pieces are missing. And they soon realize that there’s a danger to the island that’s decidedly not supernatural—the local lighthouse owner who wants to turn Pratchett House into a hotel. Suffused with Down East flavor, this lightly spooky, thoroughly enjoyable novel is ideal for readers who prefer their ghosts friendly and their villains easily foiled. Most characters read white; Joe is Passamaquoddy.

Offers ghostly thrills set against a well-developed New England backdrop.