What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

I read this book as a young kid- so 9/10 years old- 1994/5 (pretty sure it is a book from the 80's tho). It was a series but I read only one - Think I recall it taking place in the UK (?). About a boy with a magical family - specifically remember an uncle & he had a female cousin (she ends up saving him at the end). He comes across a ring (?) & then gets possessed by it. Later find it belonged to a murderer who was set on fire & then threw himself in a well. I had found it about 5 years ago, wrote it down & of course lost the paper. Thank you to any one who can help!

Tomie, I added a few details to the header/topic title, so your book might be recognized from that description alone. Many members only read the headers.

I guessed it's middle grade or teens (YA). If getting possessed by a murderer is a spoiler, we'll remove it from the header (and add a spoiler alert).

You can update it by clicking the small "edit" link after the header. This only works on the full Desktop website - not the Mobile website or app. (On the Mobile website, there's a "Desktop version" link at the bottom of the page.)

Kris wrote: "Tomie, I added a few details to the header/topic title, so your book might be recognized from that description alone. Many members only read the headers.

I guessed it's middle grade or teens (YA)...."

Aww Thank you so much!

You're welcome.

Del-Del and The Changeover have young boys who are possessed, but I don't know if all the details match.

Rainbowheart wrote: "Del-Del and The Changeover have young boys who are possessed, but I don't know if all the details match."

Not the one but it does sound like an interesting series :)

Where does the boy find the object? Does he always carry/wear this small(?) object?

How does he start to behave differently, and how does he feel?

A guess - The Figure in the Shadows (1975) by John Bellairs?

Kris wrote: "A guess - The Figure in the Shadows (1975) by John Bellairs?"

Yes that is the book!!! Omgosh - I honestly just kind of gave up hope as the details I gave were awful (ring (?)), just awful. You have honestly made my night - I don't go on here as often as I should & for some reason was having a bad night & doing a book hunt (reading book reviews) & realized you had replied four months back with the correct title- You are amazing! I could give you a gigantic hug right now, also your detective skills are phenomenal considering what a shoddy job I gave of giving you the wrong details, & then not replying to your questions (I apologize) & literally you were like okay here is the book! I am truly amazed, no jokes! Thank you for finding it for me, I appreciate it greatly - you have made my night much better - I am now gonna hunt this book down (it has plagued my memory for years) & so sorry for the late reply!

Great! Glad we could help, Tomie. I got lucky with a Google search, something like:

Google search of Goodreads:
site:goodreads.com "fantasy" "middle grade" "possessed" magical amulet

Kris wrote: "Great! Glad we could help, Tomie. I got lucky with a Google search, something like:

Google search of Goodreads:
site:goodreads.com "fantasy" "middle grade" "possessed" magical amulet"
Well better googling skills then me, I probably put in everything I could think of & nothing came up but funny enough Eli Roth actually did a movie on the first book & it kept popping up on my Netflix recommends lol I need to listen to the Universe more apparently. Thanks again!

I find it helps to search one specific site using Google. Goodreads and Amazon are good bets because their reviews contains lots of descriptive keywords. For example:

site:amazon.com keyword "keyword phrase" -skipthisword