Stories with a mystery in them? ( loved charlotte sometimes and moondial)

any recommendations for (slightly) scary stories with some kind of mystery in them, preferably with a female central character? for a girl who loved Charlotte Sometimes, Skellig, Marrianne Dreams, Moondial, Charmed Life..

A Stitch in Time - Penelope Lively
The Mirror Image Ghost - Catherine Storr
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L'Engle
Tom's Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce
Carrie's War - Nina Bawden
Silver Sword - Ian Serraillier
The Dark is Rising - Susan Cooper
Holes - Louis Sachar

The Windsinger - William Nicholson

The Girl Who Could Fly - Victoria Forester

First Aid for Fairies and Other Fabled Beasts is a series with a 12 year old female central character and Rocking Horse War has a female lead as well. First Aid is contemporary the other is set after the WW1. They are by Lari Don and my daughters (now 9 and 12) loved both. They also enjoyed Robe of Skulls by Vivien French.

The Mysterious Benedict Society is a great read....

[Deleted by Amazon on 13 May 2012 13:23:32 BDT]

Try Back From The Brink of Death, from Kindle Books
and for a more lighter book The Tanterlising Tales of a Troubled Teenager, from http://www.amazon.co.uk
Both good reads

Ed - to quote Amazon:
"Amazon Community Team says:

Amazon recently created a new community for authors. The `Meet Our Authors' community is designed to give authors a space to engage with one another and promote their latest and greatest works.

With the advent of the new community, we will no longer allow self-promotional posts in other communities. Starting on December 15, 2011, all "shameless self-promotion" activity will be limited to the `Meet Our Authors' community. Promotional threads outside of these forums will be removed.

We invite authors and interested readers to come join the discussion at:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/forum/meet%20our%20authors

We look forward to seeing you!"

I.e. keep your spam to MoA

"Try Back From The Brink of Death, from Kindle Books
and for a more lighter book The Tanterlising Tales of a Troubled Teenager"

Hmm - buy a book from an author who can't even spell the title of her book correctly? How idiotic can people get.

Remember - this woman wants to get inside your kids head, yet *cannot spell the title of her own book*. Do you think that's a good idea?

Adventure Island Series - Helen Moss Adventure Island: The Mystery of the Whistling Caves
The Royal Wedding Adventure - Jules BronteThe Royal Wedding Adventure: Trouble-Solving Trio
The Star of Kazan - Iba Ibbotson The Star of Kazan
Laura Marlin Mysteries series - Laura St John Dead Man's Cove (Laura Marlin Mysteries 1)

Try Magic Bites: A Kate Daniels Novel, Book 1, Magic Burns: A Kate Daniels Novel: 2: A Kate Daniels Novel, Book 2 & Magic Strikes: A Kate Daniels Novel: 3 (Kate Daniels 3). I have heard good things about them.

[Deleted by the author on 14 May 2012 19:13:12 BDT]

Vanessa - see Amazon's thread labelled 'Important Announcement from Amazon' - in short you are supposed to keep your self promo to the Meet our Authors forum, not spam it here.

Try a book called Sixth Sense by Andrea Preece.

I didn't realise, many apologies. Have deleted post and will move elsewhere! Thank you for pointing it out to me (first time I'd ever posted).

If you want something you need to get your head round, you could do a lot worse than Diana Wynne Jones. Unfortunately the one I most want to recommend has a male protagonist and is called "Archer's Goon" - it's technically fantasy, but is set in something close to the here and now. They mystery for most of the book is, "What the Dickens is going on?" Soon you're into a story of adult subling with strange (but strangely limited) powers who all seem to be putting pressure on Howard's father and getting at each other - but why? and for what? And when you have some idea of what some of them seem to be after finding out what to do next is no simple matter. None of this, "Find the three items and all be well" stuff. It's funny, clever well-written and at the age of <cough> I still re-read it.

Lots of other Diana Wynne Jones books are worth the time of someone who likes exercising the muscles between their ears. "Charmed Life" (and others in that series), "Cart and Cwidder", "Homeward Bounders". "Howl's Moving Castle" has a splendid female heroine and a really complicated mystery - read it before you watch the movie if possible. "Fire and Hemlock" is a good book with a teenage female heroine and a very convoluted story, but depends on an understanding of adult emotional entanglements and demands.

How about some of the Discworld stories for younger readers? "The Wee Free Men" - despite its seemingly masculine title is a story about Tiffany Aching, whose family of sheep farmers has bred witches before now, but is mostly concerned with very down to earth matters. Tiffany (it soon becomes clear) has magical abilities, but is most proud of her cheese-making however the situation soon means that she has to involve herself in matters magical to try and sort out what is happening to her tiresome baby brother.

I think someone else has recommended Susan Cooper - "The Dark is Rising" series begins with "Over Sea, Under Stone" which is the weakest of them, but you can start with "The Dark is Rising" (vol 2), but that is a tale mostly of a boy whose 10th birthday starts very strangely indeed.

She might enjoy Ruth M Arthur's "A Candle in Her Room" and "The Autumn Ghosts" (also published as the "Autumn People". Second hand copies are fairly easy to get hold of; I don't think any of her books are in print just now.

They are nicely atmospheric and a bit unsettling. I loved them as a young girl, and still enjoy going back to them many years on.

A Traveller in Time - Alison Uttley