Ghost Abbey

Hippo Hauntings #1

by Robert Westall

'Ninety-eight keys, none of them labelled. Ninety-eight keys, and they say there are ninety-nine rooms . . . What will you find in the ninety-ninth room, I wonder'Maggi is delighted when her father takes a new job, renovating a crumbling stately home in Cheshire. It's a chance to escape from the North-East, from the predatory Doris Streeton, and perhaps from the grief at the heart of Maggi's family. But Maggi gradually comes to realize that their new home holds secrets far more sinister than anything they have left behind . . .

Genres: Horror, Young Adult, Ghosts, Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, Childrens

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Robert Westall was born in North Shields, Northumberland, England in 1929.

His first published book The Machine Gunners (1975) which won him the Carnegie Medal is set in World War Two when a group of children living on Tyneside retrieve a machine-gun from a crashed German aircraft. He won the Carnegie Medal again in 1981 for The Scarecrows, the first writer to win it twice. He won the Smarties Prize in 1989 for Blitzcat and the Guardian Award in 1990 for The Kingdom by the Sea. Robert Westall's books have been published in 21 different countries and in 18 different languages, including Braille.

From: http://www.robertwestall.com/

Reviews

[Julie]

Maggi Adams loves her dad. He hasn't been the same since her mom died. Nothing has been the same. Maggi knows they need a change, and she definitely knows they need to get far away from the horrid woman their dad hired to clean the house while he's working. She's just too forward....and common. Her dad doesn't need an entanglement like that. So when her father gets a job offer to be a project foreman on a renovation project, Maggi is so happy! Restoring an old abbey sounds like just the thing to bring her dad out of depression. Plus it will give her, and her twin brothers, something to do over summer break. After they arrive at the dilapidated old place, Maggi soon knows that there is more to the old building than anyone realizes. Strange noises. Singing when nobody is there. Accidents happen to those who try to damage the abbey. Ghostly figures. What's going on? What does the Abbey want?

I enjoyed this story. The tale is well-written and spookily entertaining. The front cover art is awesome! Maggi makes a great main character. She works hard to help her dad and keep the twins in line and bravely investigates the Abbey. While there is no graphic gore or over-the-top scary moments, there is a bit of language and some adult themes. Not enough to give it a pg-13 rating, but it might not be appropriate for kids younger than middle-grade. There is a nice element of suspense to the story, and the descriptions of the Abbey and its state of disrepair really set the stage nicely for a ghost story. The ending is a bit abrupt...but that didn't harm my enjoyment of the book. Very entertaining!

Robert Westall is the author of many books for kids and adults including The Devil on the Road and The Watch House. I'm definitely going to be reading more by this author!

[C. (Don't blank click my reviews, comment please!]

In sheer bafflement I have to ask: how hard is it to F-up atmospheric settings? Why misuse “Ghost Abbey” on a story that showed one non-interactive ghost?! If I liked the style, protagonist, and gleaned points of interest from the tale Robert Westall did tell; three stars for something compelling would be a cinch. No dice. His first mistake was making drama of lame sidelines; everything but the abbey's potential for archaeological importance. Considering this was, an albeit tedious, 176-page story; it took forever to arrive at George Adam's dream job: restoring a landmark and mental health after losing his wife.

Although I think a dream job and a change is enough of a draw, I understand impoverished characters makes their opportunity urgent. Instead of sketching that a little, we are mired in Maggi's distress about a housekeeper who pretends to work, only when their Dad is there. What child of any age would hesitate to say: “Dad, that lady isn't doing squat”? Without it being obvious that Maggi cooks and cleans, what poor person hires help? It was stupid that they actually left the house to avoid the useless woman. When they get to the abbey, Maggi is depicted as doing nothing but cook and clean. She explores enough to make a sensational discovery and befriend her Dad's boss but how could Robert squander pages like that? Nobody reads a paranormal mystery to watch a child clean, while two useless brothers run around. The off-hours are the spark of every adventure novel!

There are two observable metaphysical anomalies but a non-static spirit, with an identity, would be far more exhilarating. Finally, despite being asked to check for structural incongruities; the gambit of patting down peeling wallpaper for days and not opening the wonder underneath, skewed this to two stars.

[Megan]

I came across this book when I was in junior high.

For some odd reason, I'd go back and read it every summer. I'm a huge fan.

[Kailey (Luminous Libro)]

Maggi is delighted when her father takes a job restoring an old abbey in the country. The family, including her two little twin brothers, move into the habitable parts of the mansion, along with Miss MacFarlane, the secretary overseeing the restoration of the abbey. Maggi cleans out the bedrooms and sets up the kitchen, since she has been used to doing all the housekeeping since her mother's death. But there are many mysterious things happening around the abbey, and Maggi starts to wonder if the house itself is sentient. An ethereal voice sings in the garden, bells ring to call servants that are long dead, and Maggi sees a vision of a man from history. Could the house be trying to protect itself from intruders, or is the house welcoming them and asking for help?

I first read this book as a pre-teen, and I remember being fascinated by it! It has stayed in my memory all these years, and I finally found it again about 30 years later. And reading it as an adult, I was just as enchanted with the characters and fascinated with the mystery. What a delight to rediscover this book after so many years!

One of the things that I loved when I was a kid was seeing how Maggi takes over the housekeeping and takes such good care of her family. At that time when I was 11 years old, my mom was pregnant with my baby brother and on bedrest for several months, and I loved "playing house" and caring for my younger siblings and helping my Dad with the chores. So I really related to Maggi and all her housekeeping! I was so pleased that that was a major focus of the book, because it shows how close their family is and how they enjoy meals together and talk together.

Maggi is an amazing main character! She's frightened by all the spooky things in the house, but she has the courage to investigate when it really matters. At one point, she gets so fed up with the house and all the creakings and groanings of the old timber. It's really funny how she gets irritated with the house, as if it is an annoying younger sibling. I love her spunk!
The best thing about Maggi is her insight into the other characters. We see everyone else through her eyes, and she notices their facial expressions and body language and tone of voice, and she can accurately guess what they are feeling and thinking. She makes intuitive leaps about the relationships that are changing around her, especially as her family begins to move through their grief after her mother's death. It's brilliant how perceptive she is!

I love that this story is not scary, just spooky and mysterious. I also think that it has stuck in my memory all these years because it is a "ghost" story without any ghosts. The concept of the house itself being sentient is so intriguing and different! However, that's also why it took me 30 years to find this book again, because the title and blurb make it seem like a ghost story. It's marketed as a ghost story, so I probably passed by it in my search to find this book again.

There is one scene where Maggi sees a vision of the past, but it's described like an old movie that is playing a scene from history. It's not a ghost interacting with the present. And there is the mysterious singing voice, but that is also presented as an echo from the past, not as a ghost that is aware of them. So I feel like the title is a major misnomer.

The writing is brilliant, and I love how the mystery gradually deepens as the house gets more aggressive and dangerous. Every chapter really drew me into the story, and I loved the character arcs for each of the supporting characters and especially for Maggi as they adjust all to their new environment in the abbey and their new relationships with everyone involved in restoring the abbey.

There are so many great emotional moments and little details that I loved, but there are two major scenes that stuck in my memory all these years. One is when a construction worker starts vandalizing the abbey and he falls off some stonework that crumbles under his feet and he is badly injured. Maggi instantly recognizes that the house caused him to fall as a way to protect itself. And then one of her twin brothers catches the carp in the garden pond, and he falls in and almost drowns. The only reason they could find him among the pond weeds and rescue him, is because the carp flopped back into the water. Maggi intuits that if the carp had died, the house would have also drowned her brother. Chilling! I loved those scenes because it showed the supernatural power of the abbey to influence events within its grounds.

There are so many great layers to this story - the abbey and all the mystery and creepy things, and Maggi's family moving through their grief, and Miss MacFarlane who is lonely and putting all her hopes into restoring the abbey. People, and relationships, and grief, and family loyalty, and all these wonderful themes of belonging and faith - and over it all, the abbey is looming with danger and hope.

There is a little bit of sensitive content and some mild profanity. This book has been screened on the Screen It First website. https://screenitfirst.com/book/ghost-...

[Andi]

This one was a disappointment, honestly. Less than 200 pages, and it still took me over a week to finish, because it just didn't hold my interest. The plot was pretty scattered; the scares, such as they were, were not scary, and the story just kind of rambled along until realizing three quarters of the way through that it needed a point, and jamming one in for the end. Maggi seemed awfully quick to jump to conclusions that happened to be right despite lacking any real evidence for doing so. The climactic scene was also completely ridiculous. Grown adults agreeing to do roof repairs while clinging to a lightning rod during a massive storm? Seriously? I don't care what kind of ghost you've got, that's insanse. It also lacked a lot in characterization; the twins in particular were simply convenient mischief machines with no actual personalities (also, I'm sorry, if you're going to have actual humans called "Baz" and "Gaz", I'm going to at least need to know what those are short for), and Maggi's complete willingness to play Susie Homemaker, while I guess I'd buy it from a kid who's lost her mom, the rest of the world being totally okay with it and nobody making any effort to intervene or even really commenting on it seems weird. I know the book is old, but it's not that old.

So yeah — not scary, even by children's book standards, the plot is barely coherent, and the characters are just vehicles to move along said plot. There is so much better juvenile horror out there. Pass.

[Capn]

Read for the 2026 MG Reading Challenge.. 24th book, I think?

2.5, rounding up. Want to give it a 2 for how it ended, though. Spoiler: I honestly wondered if the items were what I thought they were (maybe I've watched too much AR.. still sniggering at the man in Harrogate, ha ha!).

Largely missable - hated reading Aah and Eeh all the time for the Geordie accent (the family is from Newcastle and go to Cheshire, near Nantwich, to work on the old manor).

Moral is: would you rather be bored to death in Tyneside and have your dad shack up with the local cheap tart, or, risk health and safety and the paranormal and live in Cheshire with a weird redheaded VSO woman?
.... the sloot in Newcastle is quite unlikeble...so... (shrugs).

Odd little story. Can't really recommend. Made me want to listen to medieval plainsong, however.

edit: as ever, a quick exchange of comments with my good friend Sem has spurred my brain out of its dazed state, and I've come up with an analysis of what is wrong with this book. There's probably a word for it (enlighten me if you know, so I can learn it!), but there are far too many themes and commentaries shoved into a slight and predictable thriller-plot (the ghostly monks singing about "The Day of Wrath" at the climax... I wish there was more about them!!!). Here are the tangential/background threads I can remember:

1. Maggi's grief and role of little mother at age 12. She's "quite the little housewife", according to everyone. She absolutely has me licked - my kitchen is never that clean, and I would not bother peeling new potatoes for oven chips, nor would I cool whole cooked plums on a windowsill and be proud of how well my custard has set. This is set in or around 1981, for context. She is the carer of her widowed father and two rowdy younger twin brothers, Gaz and Baz (Garry and Barry, for the non-Brits who wondered in the reviews. I could go off on a tangent here, but for future ref: Jezza = Jeremy (yeah, HOW?!), Chezza = Cheryl or Chelsea... none of it is guessable, it's not you).

2. Widowed, lonely Geordie dad, George, and all the women "trying to get their hooks into him". Maggi's protective of her father, her father is dependent on her, she's twelve. This is already a tragic subplot that could have been richly developed. At least we didn't get ghostly succubi.

3. MZZZZ. Catriona MacFarlane. That's MZZZZ (Ms), because she's an independent, strong* female character who doesn't need "every Tom, Dick and Harry knowing she's unmarried". Incidentally, I strongly believe in this myself - I'll be Mrs. when young men go back to being Masters, and not beforehand. But I digress. MacFarlane is a flaky, gawky ex-VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas), who lives a lonely life. She was an orphan and "never had a mum or a dad", and can't cook, doesn't wear make-up, has unfashionable clothing, and talks like a Toff (upper-class knob - hold that thought). She votes Labour and is decidedly left-wing in her political views. She bought the house "on faith" from inheritance money with the view of turning it into a home where she could teach kids in wheelchairs gardening careers... I say it like that, because the way it is described seems half-baked and Polyanna-ish (I have no objections to the idea, but it's sort of presented as if it is hopelessly soft and naive of her). She's convinced faith and Providence will pay bills of 6 figures when she only has 30k left.
3. a)*she's not very strong. She seems like a big kid, can't even make decent tea. Maggi has to cook for her.
3. b) Catriona says, "Oh, Maggi! You're growing up and want a mother!" outright, and tries to mother Maggi. Maggi ends up giving Mzz. MacFarlane a make-over.
(I guess this all feeds back into point 1)

4. The Army life. George is ex-army. Percy (a stray dog of a man and his stray dog who show up and stay) is also ex-army. Short back and sides, and, according to Catriona, racism. Their army experience is only shown as a positive, grounding force in the chaos, and I didn't notice any overt racism, so I don't totally get the reference (the argument is by Catriona that in Sri Lanka everything is better and friendlier, and the West has lost its way. And George points out that if it was better, the West wouldn't have to keep sending them money so their basic human rights were seen to (food, shelter, etc.). He simply argues that he doesn't like people poo-pooing all over their own culture just because 'the grass is always greener'. He points out that there are both good people and bad people of every creed, colour and tribe, and that humans are humans are humans. Mzz MacFarlane calls him a racist, "like all white army men!" and runs off. I didn't think he was being racist.

5. Social Class and Politics. Catriona and George each accuse each other of voting Tory. Each are horribly offended: George is a proud working class Geordie and has never voted Conservative in his life! Catriona's great great grandfather or something was in Gladstone's original cabinet and is Labour to her core. (This doesn't matter at all to the story, I guess other than to bridge the gap from Toff-to-Tyneside Builder).

6. Bleeding-heart Liberals. Mr Timmins is a timid man. And also, like Catriona, a former teacher. He's a complete pushover and has no control over the juvenile delinquent job-creation boys that are meant to be helping rebuild the house (they're vandalizing it instead). Mr Timmins is a ridiculous caricature of an overly-soft 'mentor' who are letting the teens run the place to ruin and who are running roughshod over him. He believes Capitalism is to blame: "These are the new poor, railing against a system that glamorises the material world but denies them the possessions they are told are vital!" He's an absolute pill of a man, and he's only there, I think, to push Mzz. MacFarlane's character closer on some social spectrum towards old-fashioned principled George. It seems like a lot of text was wasted on this. Stuttwick, a belligerent redheaded goliath, is the real ringleader, and bullies everyone. He meets a bad end...

7. Teachers. Maggi hates them. She spots that both MacFarlane and Timmins are former teachers before we are told they are. She hates learning. She hates Mzz. MacFarlane trying to teach her the Latin names of the flowers, the names of the local flora and fauna, or the Latin words the Ghost monks are singing. Maggi HATES learning. Why?! I don't know. She's 12 going on 60 and a stubborn old maid of a housewife, somehow. Which is... strange. And no one's concerned about that. I would be.

8. Imagination vs. Stubborn Blindness. Maggi can see and hear the ghosts, and her dad either doesn't or refuses to (but we find evidence that he does hear them, at least - he's so stubborn, "Like a horse who blinkers himself" - Maggi pities him). Maggi is the one seeing the ghostly scenes, and her dad is there to basically threaten anyone who gives credence to her imagination. He won't have her being scared.. or is that all he's bothered by?

9. Ghosts and the Dead. By the end of the story, you'd have suspected this, but George comes right out and says, bitterly: "Why should they be allowed to trouble the world? There was never a trace of your mam . . ." This is the first time he accepts that, alright, they're ghosts. His repeated refusal to accept them borders on the comical - the servants bells are ringing (impossible, some of the wires were disconnected) in order, left to right ("Just the wind! Wind plays some funny tricks in an old house!"), then right to left ("I'm not having that!"), and he fights the bells silent in a fit of rage with some newspaper. It's heartbreaking, because obviously GRIEF is a major player. We see it elsewhere as well, in sad and hollow eyes, in statements, "I can mend anything but a broken heart," etc.

Any of these single themes (there are more, but I can't be bothered - bullying, 'boys being boys', faith, the teenagers damaging the roots of the beech trees by parking on them to have sex in their cars (this is a weird thing that gets mentioned a few times, and I haven't decided if there's symbolism in it or just a joke), the house having an agenda, etc.) could have been expanded upon and played THE MINOR CHORD. But no they're ALL there, messy as F and interwoven, and it just makes an unholy din of a noise.

It's all those bells, jangling at once. But it's hard to see it as alarming - I'm more inclined to take George's approach to it. If the editor had just silenced all but one... ah well.

[M.]

Set in England. Maggi's mother died 2 years ago leaving her father despondent and Maggi to care for the house and her two younger brothers. Her father's construction business is in trouble since he is sunk in sorrow, the blousy housekeeper/babysitter he's hired to watch Maggi and her brothers has set her matrimonial sights on him and does no housekeeping, and Maggi has to do all the shopping, cooking, and housework. Then, right when school is ending, her father gets an offer to repair an old abbey/mansion in Cheshire. Desperate to get him away from the predacious housekeeper, Maggi convinces him to accept the offer and the family moves away to live in the abbey while the work is being done. Additional characters include Ms. MacFarlane, secretary of the trust which owns the abbey, and a group of juvenile delinquents on some sort of court-ordered work release who create havoc. Gradually Maggi comes to realize that the ancient abbey has a sort of self awareness and an ability to protect itself. For example, the lead hooligan gets his comeuppance when he tries to destroy part of the outside of the building.

It's not clear why 12-year old Maggi is responsible for all chores, cleaning, cooking, laundry, and child care re her brothers with the dad cheering her on--"That's my Maggi, a great cook." Some of the juvenile delinquents are chilling in their complete lack of empathy or interest, young sociopaths in the making, "controlled" by a completely ineffective idiot who mouths complacencies about their poor upbringings and (self-fulling) lack of future means of employment--but the house takes care of them! A budding romance between Ms. MacFarlane and Maggi's dad is a sweet solution to the dad's despondency. So...stereotypical characters. Still, it's an interesting story with a nice build-up to Maggi's gradual realization of the building's paranormal abilities and her efforts to protect her family and learn the secrets of the abbey.

[Courtney Gruenholz]

I am going to have this rounded up to 2 stars because it wasn't that Ghost Abbey was bad as much as it was...boring.

Maybe because I am in my early forties it just didn't really strike me as much Robert Westall did with The Promise which I have already read. If I had read this book in middle school, it might have been a little more interesting as the main character, Maggi, is twelve going on thirteen.

If you like your scares where nothing is scarier, there are better books with atmosphere about places that are haunted. The blurb on the back of the book is quite misleading, making the story seem much more interesting.

Also, you better be prepared for a lot of dialogue that is very British, boarding on brogues that may leave you quite confused. There are only a handful of actual suspenseful things, and the ending is just as puzzling.

Maggi is a very good main character since she has to look out for her father and brothers and be a little wise beyond her years. Her relationship with her father is also very touching to read about since I lost my own father in my late teens and her dad reminds me of my own being so handy with building things.

So, as I said there are good things about Ghost Abbey... but just not enough to say I really liked it.

[Melisa]

Well this just threw me back to my childhood! This book popped up on my Goodreads and the memories came flooding back. Guess my taste in books hasn't changed much in the past thirty-ish years;) This one may have to be a reread as an adult. Always fun to see how your perspective changes as you grow up.

[Abigail]

A girl named Maggi who moved to a spooky Abbey with her dad and her two brothers.

[Vincent Ripley]

Master story teller!

[Chelsea Pittman]

Cute little ghost story. Not scary.

[Sally]

You can't go wrong with Westall. I pulled this down for a re-read (I must have bought it brand-new when I was young, working and flush with cash) and was thrilled to find I had forgotten the plot and could enjoy it all over again. Atmosphere is excellent, with some good scares. I like reading books written from a child/teen's [coming-of-age] point of view - this one in particular gives the angles both of disliking fakery in adults and of the heroine's slow understanding of adult motivations. She is a young carer, who's had to cope with a lot of drudgery, but most of all she wants her Dad to be happy again.

If I were feeling uncharitable I'd drop a star for one rather guessable payoff at the end, which I won't spoil, but you have to remember this is aimed at children, who may not have the knowledge to have spotted the clues earlier. Again, in an adult version of the same story, some of the characters would have been fleshed out more - but to demand that would be entirely to miss the point of this kind of storytelling. We see through youthful eyes at all times. Sometimes that's clearer, in a way. Well, in the haunted world!

A good crisis at the end of the book and a satisfying conclusion.

[Allyson]

Another one of those buried gems hidden in an outdated ‘80s art cover. Interesting take on a haunted house story. Usually there’s a restive spirit, a murder victim wanting justice or a heartbroken soul wanting closure. In this case, the actual house is the animated soul seeking something from its living inhabitants. The 12-year-old protagonist is believable and pitiable; she is still mourning her dead mother on top of being responsible for running the household and caring for her brothers. Her despondent father even says it out loud at one point. But her point of view and opinions are still very much that of a child, which lends a nicely realistic touch to the ghost story.

[Peter Fox]

Ghost Abbey Robert Westall

This isn't a great book and it's far from peak Westall. There's an interesting premise, a spooky location and some good events, but ultimately it never really rises above it's constituent parts. The characters are all fairly one dimensional with none of them really feeling especially well developed. The mystery of the location is also undercooked with an intriguing set up, but not much in the way of a pay off.

If you want to read a better ghost story by Westall, try the Watch House, or any of his short story collections.

[Kelaina]

I adore Westall. I love the way he writes, the sentence structure, the design.

Ghost Abbey was as haunting and quiet and beautiful as any of his books.

The main character, Maggi, a woman before her time, bearing that she's only 12, but she takes care of everything and everyone.

That gives her the foresight to recognize the house is haunted, and the appropriate way to respond to it.

An excellent book, as usual.

[Amanda Sanders]

This was a tough one for me. I wouldn't call it the ghost story I was expecting. More the sounds you hear, the feelings you get, than the visual spirits of other stories.
Until about 2/3 through, I would have given it probably only 2 stars- it was kind of hard to read through, slang and accents written out, details drawn out.
But by the end, watching the story play out, it was good. Sweet and griping story of how they rescue each other without a real villain cast.
Interesting read.

[BRANDON]

Ghost Abbey is a truly baffling story. It is a wonderful gothic romance written from the point of view of the male love interest's 12 year old daughter. I can't really imagine what could lead an author to write this story from this point of view. It's a wonderful story, one of the sweetest romances I've read in a long time, and it's told from the point of view of young girl bonding with her future step-mother and watching her widowed father fall in love.

[Bill Barnett]

I was expecting a discovery that would explain the supernatural influence, but no, that didn't happen. And imagine being so cranky about women insisting on "Ms." as a title that you'd refer to a character as "Mzz McFarlane" throughout a whole book! Not my favorite by Westall but still quite satisfying.

[Kasey]

Classic gothic haunted house story with a likable (if young!) protagonist and mysterious teddy bears. The dad reminded me of Hugh Crane from the Flanagan Haunting of Hill House. The ending was a bit rushed, but for what this was, it was very good!

[Angela]

I adore Young adult novels from my childhood & ones from that era I have yet to read. An old Abbey and a youth Maggi, beyond her years, arrive at the Abby her father is to restore. But they are in for many surprises during its renovations.

[Margie]

A favorite of mine as a child

[Tina Olah]

This book was alright, though it definitely felt like more of a family drama than a horror story. There weren't too many scary or thrilling scenes at all!

[Joanna Warrens]

I love a haunted house book

[Madame Jane]

Too boring. Took so long for any action to happen.

[Charlie]

Very difficult to put down

[Melissa]

Read this one with my 11 year old son. We read it together- meh He seemed to like it or the mystery of it anyway. He deemed several parts “boring” and said there wasn’t enough “scary parts” lol

[Valeria Fantini]

Alle elementari presi questo libro in biblioteca senza mai finirlo e senza mai restituirlo.
Nonostante ciò non sono riuscita a dimenticarlo e avevo bisogno di scoprire il finale. Fortunatamente l’ho trovato su un sito di libri usati ed ecco qua, Gaia Junior davvero interessante anche per i più grandi. Libro thriller per ragazzi molto piacevole.

[Louise]

I found this gothic horror very enjoyable. I wouldn't say it was especially scary, but I enjoyed reading through Maggi's perspective and Westall built the tension well in key scenes.

[Matti Karjalainen]

Robert Westallin "Kummitusluostari" (Karisto, 1991) kuuluu Kauhujuttu-nimiseen kirjasarjaan, joiden kansikuvia katselin kirjaston lastenosastolla kultaisella 1990-luvulla, mutta joita en koskaan tullut lainanneeksi. En rehellisesti sanottuna tainnut uskaltaa.

Maggi-niminen tyttö asuu jossakin Pohjois-Englannissa yhdessä leskeksi jääneen isänsä ja kahden rasavillin veljensä Bazin ja Gazin kanssa. Elämä tuntuu olevan vähän surumielistä, mutta sitten rakennusurakoitsijana työskentelevä isä saa vanhan luostarin kunnostettavakseen ja koko perhe suuntaa etelään. Luostarissa he tutustuvat "Pelkkä" McFarlane -nimiseen naiseen, joka omistaa paikan. Työtä piisaisi muutenkin, mutta pahus kun vanhassa rakennuksessa tuntuu vielä kummittelevankin...

"Kummitusluostari" on merkillinen pieni lastenkirja. Lähdin lukemaan sitä perinteisenä kummitusjuttuna, mutta loppujen sainkin romaanin, jonka yliluonnollisten tapahtumien sijasta keskiöön nousevatkin perhe- ja ihmissuhteet. Kirjaa voisi melkeinpä pitää lapsille suunnattuna versiona Sarah Watersin Vieras kartanossa -romaanista.

Kirja ei rehellisesti sanottuna ole erityisen pelottava, ja sen alkuun sijoitettu "traileri" (alkuun sijoitettu, vajaan sivun mittainen ote kirjan keskeltä) on suorastaan harhaanjohtava. Lukija odottaa koko ajan että jotakin tapahtuisi, mutta taitaa sitten pettyä pahemman kerran kun toiminta ei käynnistykään. Loppuratkaisukaan ei ole erityisen hyytävä. Yleissävy on myös hieman aikuismainen, mikä saattaa karkoittaa nuorimmat ja ennen kaikkea huonoimmat lukijat pois.

Englantilaisuus on aika voimakkaasti läsnä, muutenkin kuin alituisen teenlatkimisen kautta. Lisäksi mukaan on istutettu vähäsen yhteiskuntapolitiikkaa: taloa kunnostamaan saapuneiden lättähattujen raggarimaista käytöstä selitetään sillä, että heillä "ei ole työtä, ei toivoa, ei tulevaisuutta" (s. 114) ja "kapitalistinen järjestelmä riistää heitä" (s. 78).

Lastenkirjastoihmisen mielestä "Kummitusluostari" on omassa lajissaan melko mielenkiintoinen tapaus, mutta se saattaa olla niin aikaan ja paikkaan sidottu, ettei sille löydy enää lukijakuntaa muista kuin nostalgiannälkäisistä aikuisista.