A children’s book from the 80s which I somehow missed, as I missed everything by Hahn, but I have remedied this now thanks to recs from ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sovay and skygiants.
Like a Brady Bunch gone wrong, a blended family has been formed, consisting of Jean and her two children, 12-year-old Molly and 10-year-old Michael, and Dave and his 7-year-old daughter Heather, whose mother died in a fire when she was 3. Heather hates the entire idea, and takes her unhappiness out fighting with her new siblings and then blaming them.
Because nothing helps a difficult family dynamic like suddenly uprooting everyone and then isolating them together, the parents move them from Baltimore to a secluded church converted into a house, a mile from anywhere, complete with a graveyard in the backyard. This freaks out Molly to begin with, and she gets even more alarmed when Heather gets obsessed with the grave of a 7-year-old child—her age—marked only with the initials H.E.H—her initials.
When Molly spots Heather at the grave talking to an unseen person she calls Helen, Heather accuses her of spying and says threateningly, “Wait till Helen comes.”
AIEEEEEEE!
A very satisfying, eerie ghost story, playing on elements of grief, guilt, and family. Molly, not Heather, is the narrator, and once she realizes that Heather may be in as much or more danger as anyone, she’s put in the difficult position of trying to save someone she doesn’t like, who doesn’t like her and doesn’t want to be saved, when no one else even believes there’s a problem.
I was delighted to discover that many of Hahn’s books are currently in print. If you’ve read others, what do you recommend?
Wait Till Helen Comes: A Ghost Story
sovay and skygiants.Like a Brady Bunch gone wrong, a blended family has been formed, consisting of Jean and her two children, 12-year-old Molly and 10-year-old Michael, and Dave and his 7-year-old daughter Heather, whose mother died in a fire when she was 3. Heather hates the entire idea, and takes her unhappiness out fighting with her new siblings and then blaming them.
Because nothing helps a difficult family dynamic like suddenly uprooting everyone and then isolating them together, the parents move them from Baltimore to a secluded church converted into a house, a mile from anywhere, complete with a graveyard in the backyard. This freaks out Molly to begin with, and she gets even more alarmed when Heather gets obsessed with the grave of a 7-year-old child—her age—marked only with the initials H.E.H—her initials.
When Molly spots Heather at the grave talking to an unseen person she calls Helen, Heather accuses her of spying and says threateningly, “Wait till Helen comes.”
AIEEEEEEE!
A very satisfying, eerie ghost story, playing on elements of grief, guilt, and family. Molly, not Heather, is the narrator, and once she realizes that Heather may be in as much or more danger as anyone, she’s put in the difficult position of trying to save someone she doesn’t like, who doesn’t like her and doesn’t want to be saved, when no one else even believes there’s a problem.
I was delighted to discover that many of Hahn’s books are currently in print. If you’ve read others, what do you recommend?
Wait Till Helen Comes: A Ghost Story
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The other book that gave me comparable pleasurable chills at the same age was The Dollhouse Murders, by a different author. You recently asked me if you should read it, and I think my final verdict was no, not if you're reading it for the dollhouse. But if you like Wait Till Helen Comes, you might like that one too (and in that case, the dollhouse might be a bonus).
If you like, I can send you The Dollhouse Murders, along with a novel that I'm not familiar enough with the genre to know if it qualifies as pulp romance, but might? As I recall, it's about a female scientist in the early 1900s (?) who just wants to do science but also have a satisfying sex life, and the latter is more difficult to come by. In high school, I skipped to the science bits and read and reread them. A few years ago, I flipped through it and thought, "Wow, this book is not as much about the science as I remembered." Funnily enough, my high school library's copy had this cover, which is why I picked it up (and probably why some librarian ordered it). The copy I found a few years ago had this cover. You can judge the potential entertainment value by the fact that both are accurate.
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Yay! I am glad it works for people who were not horrified by it as a child. I remain fascinated that I remembered the story but not the narrative perspective.
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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127162.Christina_s_Ghost
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The only other one of Hahn's books I remember from my childhood -- and I'm not even a hundred percent sure it was Hahn who wrote this, I may have just associated them in my head -- is one about a girl whose older sister is being seduced by a ... murder selkie? And she's the only one who's suspicious. I've been thinking about this book anyway as it was sort of the pattern I expected for The Mysterious Mr. Ross, which obviously turned out quite different.
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