Something went bump in the night & definitely not in a rude way - Nearly Departed by Rook Hastings

If, like me, you have the reading age of a 14 year old, I have a pretty good book here for you. After being practically forced in to reading this, and many other YA books, by my extremely alluring other half, I was pleasantly surprised by this. Pretty much immediately I was hooked.

Set in Weirdsville, a fictional estate in England, a group of unlikely friends are forced together by one girl. Emily is the school victim and she thinks she has a ghost in her house. She has heard noises, terrible screaming that goes on all night. To top it all, her mother has gone missing and she is home alone.

For some reason, all these kids believe her and agree to investigate, Scooby Gang style. They arrive at her house all on the pretence of a sleep over and set up all the necessary equipment. They talk late in to the night and are convinced nothing will happen when all of a sudden they hear screaming. Emily is trapped in her mother's empty bedroom. This isn't the scariest part. Later they talk of how they will look at the video recordings to see if anything was picked up. And something was; Emily's mother staring in to the lens.

Genuinely sinister moments when one character is describing the dead people he sees; the little girl on the swing, the woman constantly trying to get her key in her front door or the man standing in the dark corner, staring at him with an intense anger.

This story has all the ingredients of an episode of Buffy and the feel of a lite Brit horror film. The comradery is enchanting and scares chilling. An easy read with easy scares. Leaves you with the kind of unease that keeps you looking over your shoulder at night.