ELEANOR, ALICE, AND THE ROOSEVELT GHOSTS

The Roosevelt family is haunted by a treacherous spirit.

In an alternate 1898, ghosts are a common occurrence. Some are unaware of their own spectral status, most are harmless, but a few are a bit vengeful. When a peculiar spirit awakens in the old Roosevelt family house in New York City, cousins Eleanor and Alice must strive to overcome their differences and figure out just what this spirit wants. The ghost authorities claim the spirit is harmless, but the little tricks the presence pulls become more and more dangerous as time goes on. Meanwhile, another dark force has emerged in the house where Alice was born and her mother died. Are the two ghosts connected? The Roosevelt family secrets hold all the answers, and the two teen girls discover them one by one. This mix of history and fantasy creates a nifty setting for a middle-grade mystery, but there’s one big problem: The Roosevelts all sound the same. Alice and Eleanor are described as total opposites, but their spoken patterns are nearly identical, making the complex relationships all the harder to decipher, even with the aid of the family tree that is provided. The constant muttering of “Wait, which one is talking this time?” kills the narrative’s flow, destroying the pacing that’s so crucial to a mystery’s success.

A poorly characterized mystery.