This is definitely not for you if you're afraid of ghost stories! The girls at Shadowhall Academy start a ghost story telling club, but before long things get out of hand. There are spooky goings on occurring at the academy, including a bed of spiders, an imaginary friend gone wrong and too many carrots. How will they stop the final story becoming their last story?! The girls have got their work cut out, but teamwork and belief in each other will win in the end.

Sharing the news that this title was available to request on NetGalley on what seems now to be a ridiculous number of social media platforms, I was struck by how much love there is for the author’s books. Best known for his Aveline Jones series, Phil Hickes’s is now a name that is synonymous with middle grade scary reads and here, in the second of this spin-off series, he has again proved that he is at the top of his game.

Having introduced us to Aveline’s Aunt Lilian while simultaneously transporting us back to the late 1980s in Book 1, The Whispering Walls, as she spent her first term at what is possibly England’s most haunted boarding school, here we join her and her friends once more as they find themselves on another terrifying outing. Dark, incredibly creepy and leaving you guessing right up until the end as to whether or not they will all make it in one piece, here Lilian and besties Serena, Marian and Angela very innocently start up a ghost story-telling club, not imagining for one moment that this will lead to them being caught up in dark magic linked to the school’s recent history.

With the excitement of Christmas and New Year now rapidly fading, the start of the new term brings with it the cold and both dark mornings and evenings. An hour past lights out, Lilian gives the all-clear signal to her roommates before the four of them sneak out of their dorm and head to Shadowhall Academy’s library, knocking on doors as they pad down the corridor to alert some of the other girls of its being time to start the inaugural meeting of the school’s ghost story society. Once hunkered down in the library, those present share out the hot drinks and biscuits they have brought with them in anticipation of an evening to be spent sharing spooky tales.

With the meeting in full swing, those assembled are caught out by one of the prefects, Tiffany, who decides to share a story of her own, rather than grassing on them. Telling them about an old book once owned by a witch, that one of the previous teachers brought into school and which seemed to have a will of its own, Tiffany succeeds in putting the willies up the younger girls, who all head back to their rooms shortly after she leaves.

Intrigued by what they have heard, Lilian and the others wonder if there could be an element of truth to Tiffany’s story and decide to investigate. When they uncover an old book that hasn’t seen the light of day for many years, the girls immediately suspect it to be the one from the prefect’s story and set about testing out its powers. But what at first seems to be a bit of fun when they try confiding their secrets to it quickly gets out of hand when it becomes clear that the book is acting on whatever they tell it in its own sinister way. As things threaten to spiral out of control, can Lilian and the others put a stop to its actions before one of them is seriously hurt, or worse…?

After knowing no one when she joined the school in Book 1, Lilian is now firm friends with the other girls in her dorm and having survived all that that adventure brought with it, she and the others are not expecting any further supernatural encounters when we meet them here. Like many children – and indeed, many adults – the girls enjoy scaring one another through their mutual love of sharing ghost stories but here, they quickly realise that there is more to the one told at their meeting than it just being something put about to make the school seem more exciting than it really is. When they come across the book, they very swiftly learn that its powers are more than just school legend and rapidly find themselves out of their depth once they have started meddling with it.

For those picking this up, Keith Robinson’s glorious cover sets the tone of the story from the off and we are plunged into the action very early on in the story, meaning that by the time we reach the end, we are desperate to know how the story will be resolved and whether or not all of the girls will escape in one piece. Before we get to that point, there are some very scary parts of the story indeed which those who pick this up will take enormous delight in frightening themselves with.

Whether or not you have read and enjoyed the book that precedes this one or the Aveline Jones series, this is a cracking story that would work perfectly well as a standalone. I loved it and cannot wait now for a third outing for Lilian, which I hope won’t be too long in coming.

Before that, my enormous thanks must go to publisher Usborne and to NetGalley for my virtual, advance read. Shadowhall Academy: Ghost Story Society publishes 13th February.

Massive Phil Hickes fan and although I hate spooky stories as an adult as I get scared, I loved his way of telling a scary story so that there is that real fear and tension, but it is totally appropriate for the MG audience - the correct amount of fear, but not so much that you are going to have nightmares and flashbacks (ok maybe a little!.
This is the second in the series of Shadowhall Academy and Lilian and her group of friends have established a great rapport with each other. Each character has their own personality, interests and strengths and that really comes through in this book. Somehow they end up investigating a "Book of Secrets" that a prefect told them about in their late night meeting of the ghost story society. Imagine actually finding that book of secrets hidden under a trapdoor in the drama store room and reading people's secrets they had added to the book. And imagine if then you investigated the history of the school and found out that some things related to these secrets had actually come true? Well of course, Lilian and her group test out the book and I loved the part when Lilian put in that she hated carrots and then the next day the entire menu was carrot based! All fun right? Well it is until they go to put the book back and it whispers that it wants one last secret from Lilian. You just know it is going to be bad as you are reading it. But what harm can an imaginary friend do? A lot is the answer and this is the part where I really got hooked into wanting to find out what was going to happen next and also getting anxious about how scary it was going to be!! An absolute triumphant book 2. Do I love this series as much as Aveline? Absolutely I do and it just keeps getting better and better.