Ghosts of Greenglass House is the second book in the Greenglass House series by Kate Milford. We really liked Greenglass House, although you can read here about how I was not a fan of the ending, which was weak and also very strange. Will the sequel be as strong as the first....?
So, Milford has set this story a year after the first book. We learn that Meddy disappeared after the Christmas mysteries of the previous year, and hasn't yet returned. Milo, meanwhile, is struggling more with his biological lineage. While I don't have any personal experience with adoption, I really appreciated how the author handled it here in the story and I think it was very balanced. She did rely, as in the last book, on convenient situations, but not As Much, or at least As Noticeably, as before.
In this novel, we're back in Greenglass House, and it is Christmas, and yet again we've got a bunch of unwelcome strangers stuck in the house to Milo's chagrin. I would have liked a little bit of a change up with that - but I'm not a fan of formulaic sequels. Meddy appears and she and Milo repeat the same sort of role-playing magic game that they did last year. Wait...things are hidden in the same places. It's all about the same theivery and sneakery...
This is the same book, isn't it. Sigh.
I mean, if you enjoyed Greenglass House, you'll probably enjoy Ghosts, because it's essentially the same story. On the other hand, in a lot of ways it is a paler reflection of the first book. We're expected to already know a lot of background - who Meddy is, what game they played last year, etc. For that reason, I'd say that to get much out of this story you would need to read the previous novel.
Other oddities...
When we read Greenglass House I immediately felt like I HAD to know where this place was supposed to be. I fell down several rabbit holes trying to figure it out, and had pretty much decided that it had to be a generic north-eastern seaboard in the Americas. Then along comes Ghosts - and there's a scene in the story where one thief is defacing an American coin and is told that it's illegal to do so. She responds by saying it isn't illegal if it's foreign currency.
Gah! Where is this story SET THEN?? I decided it must be Cornwall then. Somewhere with a heavy history of smuggling, but with the correct weather patterns for the story. But then...there's another part that comes along where it seems to imply that this is not in Great Britain. I'm annoyed. I'm unreasonably annoyed that I can't do a tonne of research and read a whole bunch of things related to the geographical area in which this story is set. Grrr.
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