Doll bones
No romance or no physical intimacy at all.
Closed door. No anatomical or crude language.
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Blurb
A Newbery Honor Book Six starred reviews! “A chilling ghost story, a gripping adventure, and a heartwarming look at the often-painful pull of adulthood.” —School Library Journal (starred review) Three friends embark on one last quest to help the ghost haunting a doll in this “deep, strange, and compelling” (The New York Times Book Review) illustrated middle grade horror by New York Times bestselling author Holly Black, cocreator of The Spiderwick Chronicles. Zach, Poppy, and Alice have been friends forever. And for almost as long, they’ve been playing one continuous, ever-changing game of pirates and thieves, mermaids and warriors. Ruling over all is the Great Queen, a bone-china doll cursing those who displease her. But they are in middle school now. Zach’s father pushes him to give up make-believe, and Zach quits the game. Their friendship might be over, until Poppy declares she’s been having dreams about the Queen—and the ghost of a girl who will not rest until the bone-china doll is buried in her empty grave. Zach, Alice, and Poppy set off on one last adventure to lay the Queen’s ghost to rest. But nothing goes according to plan, and as their adventure turns into an epic journey, creepy things begin to happen. Is the doll just a doll or something more sinister? And if there really is a ghost, will it let them go now that it has them in its clutches?
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My True Love Gave to Me
Same author appears here, and the childhood-friends warmth carries over, but these are cozy holiday romances rather than a creepy ghost quest.
The Queen of Nothing
Same author's eerie, cruel-fairy-tale voice and childhood friends turned something else, but aimed older: court intrigue, violence, and real romance.
P.S. I Still Love You
Keeps the friends-to-lovers ache of growing up together, though it trades haunted dolls for light contemporary romance drama.
The Summer I Turned Pretty
Also about childhood companions changing as adolescence hits, but the tension is summer-crush slow burn instead of eerie dread.
The Stolen Heir
Holly Black again, with the same uncanny folklore menace, just older characters, darker violence, and a real romance thread.
Summer days and summer nights
Shares the friends-becoming-more feeling and short-story variety, including a touch of the strange, but far sunnier and lighter.