Frozen Charlotte

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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. Once Sophie is reunited with her family I assumed the chill I felt whilst reading this would abate. If the protagonist is to be continually surrounded by other individuals then surely this high-stakes horror could not continue? And this is where I found that the setting would continue to play as big a part in the tense dread, that pervades every aspect of this book, as the plot line. The mysteries around the school itself begin to come to light when Sophie sets out to uncover what is really going on here. I found myself asking during the duration of the time I spend reading this book, whether or not the dolls were actually alive and scary as hell. I mean, there had to be some kind of explanation, right? You would think so…

I absolutely love the cover! I thought it captured the mood of the book really well and looked suitably spooky without giving too much away. I wanted Sophie to be quite normal, in contrast to the other family members, but her courage and determination are the things I most admire about her, as well as her commitment to find out what happened to her friend.There's something about this book that sets it apart from so many other YA horror novels. Generally, YA horror novels are often cliche and silly, rather than creepy and scary. But this book was not at all cliche or silly. I don't get scared or spooked, but this book definitely was something that had me uneasy throughout. I'm not usually that into books that linger in the early 20th century. Sure, I'm happy to time travel there on my way to another time period, but Alex Bell is such a talented writer that I would have happily signed up to stay longer on the Isle of Skye reading by rationed greasy, stinky, animal fat candlelight.

I thought this was a pretty good book. Very dark covers everything from death, suicide, ouiji boards, evil dolls, demonic spirits, crazy families, secrets, possession, hauntings ect. It's not a read for the faint hearted. The very thought of the Frozen Charlotte dolls--figurines designed to replicate a foolish woman who froze to death as a result of not bundling up before going out into the frigid night--is enough to give me a shiver. However, these particular figures are so much more . . . haunting. After Sophie’s best friend dies in a tragic accident, she travels to the isle of Skye in Scotland to visit her relatives, who live there in an old, possibly haunted mansion.Then there's the dolls. The Frozen Charlottes don't just want to stab your eyes out with needles, although that would be fun. They want to get into your head and make you think bad things. Do bad things. Eventually, you'll see how fun those games are. They remind me of malicious little porcelain fairies.

Our main protagonist, Sophie, has to go stay with relatives when her friend unexpectedly dies after a rather bizarre encounter using an Ouija board app on their phone. The encounter leads Sophie wanting more answers and she thinks she may be able to get them by staying with her uncle, whose daughter Charlotte had died years before. This book starts off dark and stays dark. The second the MC gets to her uncle's home, she is greeted by some by his very strange children. The oldest daughter is basically a stepford-wife, the brother's hand was melted in a fire and goes around having fits and then you have the littlest one who is afraid of bones. Being afraid of bones might not seem like something all the creepy but you'd be dead wrong. The author went as far as having the five year old scared so badly off bones that she wants her own skeleton out of her body so they have to hide the knives so she won't try and cut them out. I mean when I say dark, I mean DARKKKK. My mouth dropped a few times, since this was YA and the style of writing almost read like an older middle-grade. I would've marked it as middle-grade if some of the topics weren't so graphic. This is a horror novel about dolls. And about twisted happenings and things that go bump in the night. There's a scene where a character from Frozen Charlotte makes a very short appearance and I didn't really get what it means. Probably they can see the future? I don't know. Same with the first book, I didn't really care much about the romance in the story. The atmosphere at the school was not the only detailed location, however, as the scene shifted from there to Jemma's recent past. The mansion known as Whiteladies was a place that Jemma had assisted her mother--a renowned medium--conduct seances in. The man of the house, a widower, had lost his only child in a horrible horse riding accident. The first impression we get of this imposing home is one of infinite sorrow and a single-minded obsession, as pictures of the deceased Vanessa Redwing adorned nearly every wall. What inspired the story for Frozen Charlotte? Did you know how things would play out before you started?

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I really went into this story thinking 'YA horror, probably going to be a bit tame' but my goodness it really wasn't! It really terrified me to the point I actually had a nightmare about it last night when I had finished reading it.