The Dollhouse: A Ghost Story by Charis Cotter is the perfect read for the spooky season. She captivates readers and leaves us all constantly guessing about what is real and what is not.

Alice is supposed to go to a cottage for a couple weeks in the summer but plans have changed. Her parents may be getting a divorce and since her dad is always away for work, she is stuck going to a creepy old house with her mother for the summer. Her mother is acting as a live in nurse for the grumpiest old lady Alice has ever met. At least she has a friend, Lily, for the summer. Things aren’t quite as they seem at Blackwood House. For one, Alice wakes up one night with a ghost in her bed. For another, there is a dollhouse in the locked attic upstairs that seems to reflect events of the past. Alice is not sure what is reality and what is the dollhouse world sending her hurtling through space and time.

Whoa! You will definitely want a cozy blanket, a hot cup of tea and some good snacks when you start this one. Plan to hunker down because it’s a story near impossible to put down! From the get go, Charis Cotter creates an atmosphere where readers are not quite sure what is the real world and what is a dream. Everytime Alice goes to sleep, readers enter what we believe is her dream world but also seems to be the past, events that took place at Blackstone House back in the 1920s and the people who used to inhabit the home. We are left guessing as to the identities of the ghostly Bubble and Fizz. 

The dollhouse is a unique device to add suspense and drama and an overall feeling of dread and confusion throughout the whole book. I really like the premise of the story. The dollhouse acting as the conduit to bring back the spirits of the dead. What happened in the past is echoed in the present through the train accident and the relationship between the parents in the two different worlds.

I love the little details Charis Cotter inserts into the narrative to really amp up the creep factor. The roses under the bed and the wax on the floor. Small details that mean a whole lot to the story.

The Dollhouse: A Ghost Story is an excellent choice for the spooky season.