The Night Gardener

Siblings Molly and Kip, Irish orphans, have been lucky enough to get a job as servants in a decaying English manor. They meet Mistress Constance, a harsh, beautiful, caring mother to the bully Alistair, and his sweet sister Penny. Master Bertrand is gone most of the time, and every night, every member of the household has horrible nightmares and every morning Molly must clean up mysterious muddy tracks off the floor. One night Molly stays awake and sees the Night Gardener, suspiciously mopping the foreheads of those who are asleep. Molly begins to suspect something much more sinister than merely bad dreams; if Molly and Kip don’t discover what is going on, people will die.

This is a creepy, dark ghost story. I didn’t really enjoy anything about it, except for Molly’s struggles to try to take care of Kip versus keeping him safe – to keep him safe, she would have to leave the manor, but then she wouldn’t have a job and be able to care for him. This book succeeded in being spooky, but it left me with a lot of questions; I’m not really curious to find out more.