The Ghosts of Moonlight Creek
Sue Copsey
Treehouse Books
2016

The Ghosts of Moonlight Creek, by Sue Copsey, is the third book in the Spooky Adventures series. I have not read the two other books in the series, The Ghosts of Young Nick’s Head and The Ghosts of Tarawera, and I suggest you read these books first so you get an understanding of what they all are about and get to know the characters and their personalities. This book is set in 2016 and follows Joe and his adventures with his friends around Moonlight Creek.

When Joe, Beckie (Joe’s sister), Eddie and Anastasia are asked to come to a movie set near Queenstown by Anastasia’s father, famous movie director Roberto Johnson, they think that it’s for a summer holiday on a movie set: but it’s not. Something or someone is terrorising the movie set and delaying the filming. So Joe and his friends set out to find who or what is destroying the film, and stop them. But it is nothing they have ever done before. The young teens get themselves into a little trouble along the way and have to get themselves out, while sorting through a number of confusing riddles and some weird clues to find out about the creepy happenings at Moonlight creek. The teens end up having a great time making new friends and finding out crazy things about Moonlight Creek’s interesting past, that they would never have been interested in before.

This book had a very slow, boring start, because I didn’t know the characters or what they were trying to achieve, but towards the middle of the book it got so great I couldn’t put it down. It was spooky, spine-chilling and weird: the three things I love in a mystery novel. The book had a weird format, some interesting words and confusing settings which were hard to get used to, but by the end it was easier to read. The book wasn’t the best and didn’t have that hook at the start that you look for in a book: it didn’t come till the middle of the novel when all the action started happening. I usually love these sorts of books and I think if I had known before I finished the book that there were two other books, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

Editor’s note: Close

The author described the characters really well, going into detail with their personalities and what part they played in this crazy novel, which was great when trying to understand what was happening. It was great having the story set in 2016, because they had different new things that popped up in that year which was another stand-out for me in the novel. The publisher, Treehouse Books, did a great job and made the book look great.

The Ghosts of Moonlight Creek in my eyes wasn’t the best and overall didn’t stand out. But if you are willing to read the other books you will find it so much easier to read and a lot more stand-out than I have. If you are brave enough to read this spooky story, I would definitely recommend this for young teens.

Jessica-Jaime Green is 14 years old.