Moon Window

Jo Ellen never dreamed that her adored mother, widowed for five years, would remarry. Even though her new stepfather is handsome, kind and considerate, Jo hates the idea of sharing her mother. While the newlyweds honeymoon in Europe, Jo, to her disgust, is packed off to Winterbloom House in the wilds of New Hampshire to stay with an elderly cousin, "Granty" Macallan, whom she has never met. But-- if she were to "run away" (to hide at home in Cambridge, Massachusetts), the honeymoon would surely end in a panic, with her mother flying home on the next plane. That, at least, is Jo's plan.Granty's house, an old stone replica of a Scottish castle, looks strange in its New England setting. And indeed it is strange. In a high, turreted room, a round window opens onto a huge, old elm tree-- for gymnast JoEllen an easy escape route from the locked house. But when, before dawn, she climbs out and down the moonlit tree, she finds a forest and a world frighteningly unlike the one she has left. Forced to turn back, she finds herself caught up in the riddles of Winterbloom House and its window into the past. Is there really a hidden room? Why does Granty seem almost a prisoner in her own home? Who was "Witch Ellen," the first Ellen Macallan, builder of Winterbloom, portrayed in the 17th-century painting that hangs in the Great Hall? Young readers will eagerly join JoEllen in her search to discover the house's secrets, and to break the frightening hold of the past on the present. A fascinating and compelling fantasy.