The winners of The Farshore Reading for Pleasure Teacher Awards 2023, highlighting the work schools are doing to encourage a love of reading, have... I stumbled across the Frozen Charlotte dolls whilst doing research online one day and the idea for the story basically came from there. I thought they were so deliciously creepy and unusual, as well as not being all that well known, so it seemed like a great starting point for a horror novel. I didn’t know exactly how things were going to play out before I started but I had a rough idea. I prefer not to plan my books in too much detail but I do like to know how the book will end. This feels like such a great introduction to horror for teens. What is it about horror that appeals to you? Have you always been a fan?

Armistice Day: A Collection of Remembrance - Spark Interest and Educate Children about Historical Moments In this young adult horror novel, a girl staying on a remote island suspects the tiny Victoria-era dolls in her family’s old mansion are up to murder.What inspired the story for Frozen Charlotte? Did you know how things would play out before you started? For many beachcombers, the Frozen Charlotte doll is a strange and exciting prize. These beautiful and slightly creepy pieces of Victorian history wash ashore in many different sizes and styles, and have a notoriously dark origin story. The tale is well-known in the beachcombing community: A young woman Charlotte wanted to attend a New Year’s ball on a particularly cold night. She insisted on traveling in an open sleigh so she could show off her beautiful gown, despite her mother’s many warnings and pleading advice to dress more warmly. Foolish and vain, Charlotte disobeyed her mother and froze to death. But should these distinctive beach finds actually be called “Frozen Charlotte” dolls? You don't need to have read Frozen Charlotte to enjoy this book (though I definitely recommend you read both!) This is a chilling prequel that captures the menace and dread of the first book while giving you an insight of how it all started. This is the perfect eerie read that you'll want to stay up all night to finish. -- Maia and a Little Moore I devoured this book in one day. It was so much fun... I want to get a crate of Frozen Charlottes, a box of these books and give one to everyone I know at Hallowe'en -- C Smyth NetGalley

I also researched Ouija boards and old schoolhouses. The research was definitely the creepiest part of the process, especially all the stuff I read about haunted dolls. Some of them look terrifying as well! I had to try to put it all out of my mind before turning out the light to go to bed, but I have to admit to being generally more easily startled whilst I’m writing a horror novel! Grief and death are difficult subjects to write about but I find horror stories more effective when they deal with some real life horror as well as supernatural scares. Losing our loved ones, or dying ourselves, is one of our most fundamental fears, so it’s a useful one to tap into for horror. The much-anticipated prequel to the bestselling Frozen Charlotte, a Zoella Book Club title in Autumn 2016. Following the death of her mother in a terrible fire, Jemima flees to the remote Isle of Skye, to take up a job at a school for girls. There she finds herself tormented by the mystery of what really happened that night. Then Jemima receives a box of Frozen Charlotte dolls from a mystery sender and she begins to remember - a seance with the dolls, a violent argument with her step-father and the inferno that destroyed their home. And when it seems that the dolls are triggering a series of accidents at the school, Jemima realizes she must stop the demonic spirits possessing the dolls - whatever it takes. About This Edition ISBN: How do you come up with all the creepy elements to your story? Some of them are so subtle but they still give you that hollow feeling in your stomach.I still think that the old Point Horror series from the 90s deserves reading, although those books might be a little harder to find now. In terms of chilling ghost stories, I have a fondness for classics such as The Turn of the Screw by Henry James and The Haunting of Toby Jugg by Dennis Wheatley. And for YA horror I’d recommend the other Red Eye books (the series that Frozen Charlotte is from). I have another Red Eye novel called The Haunting, which is about witches and haunted ghost ships. I also enjoyed reading Sleepless by Lou Morgan from the Red Eye series, as well as Jekyll’s Mirror by William Hussey. Learn more about marbles, dominos, dice, toy vehicles, and more found on beaches around the world. Articles ›

I obviously did a lot of research about Frozen Charlottes. I also researched other famous haunted dolls, such as Annabelle and Robert. A common theme seemed to be for a child to be given a haunted doll that caused all kinds of problems in the house, which was blamed on the child at first, until the parents came to believe that the doll moved around by itself, or when there was no one home. I like the Frozen Charlotte ballad extracts that appear at the start of each chapter. My favourite lines from the poem are:Night Mayor Franklefink has vanished from the Transylvanian Express - and it's up to you to solve the case! Part of the Solve Your Own Mystery seri...

Author Luke Palmer introduces his new book, Play (Firefly Press) about four boys growing up together, the challenges, the friendships, and what hap... The bleak story of Frozen Charlotte originated in a New York Observer article in 1840 that described the frigid death of a real-life young woman somewhere in upstate New York. Over the next few years, some songs and poems helped to further the popularity of the story, and soon it caught fire in America. The story had a clear and easily-understood moral: listen to your mother and don’t be vain. We're waiting for you to come and play. Dunvegan School for Girls has been closed for many years. Converted into a family home, the teachers and students are long gone. But they left something behind...Sophie arrives at the old schoolhouse to spend the summer with her cousins. Brooding Cameron with his scarred hand, strange Lillias with a fear of bones and Piper, who seems just a bit too good to be true. And then there's her other cousin. The girl with a room full of antique dolls. The girl that shouldn't be there. The girl that died. I’d originally intended for the dolls to be voodoo dolls but it was hard to get too excited about this because they’ve been done so many times before. Frozen Charlotte dolls are quite unique, and not all that many people seem to know about them, so I thought they’d be more interesting. Now she happily dwells in an entirely make-believe world of blood, death, madness, murder and mayhem. The doctors have advised that it is best not to disturb her, for she appears to be happy there.

Everyone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago—except Pippa Fitz-Amobi. Both Charlotte books hit the nail on the dead, having an excellent balance of fast placed plot, the supernatural, characters you care about, and nasty little dolls ... -- Ginger Nuts of Horror