Frozen Charlotte: 1 (Red Eye, 1)

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Beachcombing is published by Etched by the Sea Inc. All rights reserved. All images are used by permission and are the property of their respective owners. There isn’t a single reference (in magazines, books, newspapers, or anything else for that matter) of these porcelain dolls being called “Frozen Charlottes” in the entire 19th and early 20th centuries. This is pretty remarkable, considering the near-universal belief that this time period was the origin of the dolls’ name. Denise Van Patten. "An Introduction to Bisque Dolls - About.com". About. Archived from the original on 2011-07-07. So, while it makes a compelling and delightfully morbid origin story, none of the children who actually played with these dolls knew of a connection between their favorite toy and a foolish young woman’s frostbitten corpse. And even though they’ve lost a bit of their historical creepiness, don’t let that stop you from being excited if you find a porcelain doll on the shore. They’re still strangely beautiful, wonderfully creepy, and rare.

I still think that the old Point Horror series from the 90s deserves reading, although those books might be a little harder to find now. In terms of chilling ghost stories, I have a fondness for classics such as The Turn of the Screw by Henry James and The Haunting of Toby Jugg by Dennis Wheatley. And for YA horror I’d recommend the other Red Eye books (the series that Frozen Charlotte is from). I have another Red Eye novel called The Haunting, which is about witches and haunted ghost ships. I also enjoyed reading Sleepless by Lou Morgan from the Red Eye series, as well as Jekyll’s Mirror by William Hussey.

Dolls with china heads, 1750-1870, Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium. Jointed doll and penny dolls, Kirsti Scott. Porcelain doll arms, Marylou Forrest. A Frozen Charlotte is a specific form of china or bisque doll made in one solid piece without joints from c. 1850 to c. 1920. They were typically inexpensive, and the name Penny doll is also used, in particular for smallest, most affordable versions. The dolls had substantial popularity during the Victorian era. The name of the doll originates from the American folk ballad Fair Charlotte, based on the poem "A Corpse Going to a Ball" [1] by Seba Smith, which tells of a young girl called Charlotte who refused to wrap up warmly to go on a sleigh ride because she did not want to cover up her pretty dress; she froze to death during the journey. [2]

Author Luke Palmer introduces his new book, Play (Firefly Press) about four boys growing up together, the challenges, the friendships, and what hap... The inspiration for Sophie’s character really came from a lot of gothic romances I’ve read by writers such as Victoria Holt and Madeleine Brent. These often involve a fairly ordinary heroine finding herself in extraordinary surroundings where she has to deal with strange/fascinating/eccentric characters who most often have various dark secrets. There’s very much a sense of not knowing who to trust and things not being as they seem in this type of book, and I really enjoy that kind of ambiguity as a reader. Penny’s sleepy little farming town hasn’t been the same since it was terrorized by a masked killer who claimed five teenage victims last Halloween. To that end she eagerly started a Law Degree only to find it so boring that she was at a very real risk of going completely insane. To mitigate this she started writing again. The second book got her an agent with Carolyn Whitaker of London Independent Books but, unfortunately, not a publisher. The third book, written during her first summer holidays off from university, found a home with Gollancz. The Ninth Circle came out in April 2008 with possibly the most beautiful cover ever created (matched only by her second book, Jasmyn). even gorier and scarier than the first novel [...] the harshness of [the historical setting] made this ever more horrific. Wonderful work yet again from Alex Bell! -- Miss Fay Myers NetGalley

We're waiting for you to come and play. Dunvegan School for Girls has been closed for many years. Converted into a family home, the teachers and students are long gone. But they left something behind...Sophie arrives at the old schoolhouse to spend the summer with her cousins. Brooding Cameron with his scarred hand, strange Lillias with a fear of bones and Piper, who seems just a bit too good to be true. And then there's her other cousin. The girl with a room full of antique dolls. The girl that shouldn't be there. The girl that died.

Following the sudden death of her best friend, Sophie hopes that spending the summer with family on a remote Scottish island will be just what she needs. But the old schoolhouse, with its tragic history, is anything but an escape. History is about to repeat itself. And Sophie is in terrible danger... You don't need to have read Frozen Charlotte to enjoy this book (though I definitely recommend you read both!) This is a chilling prequel that captures the menace and dread of the first book while giving you an insight of how it all started. This is the perfect eerie read that you'll want to stay up all night to finish. -- Maia and a Little MooreI also researched Ouija boards and old schoolhouses. The research was definitely the creepiest part of the process, especially all the stuff I read about haunted dolls. Some of them look terrifying as well! I had to try to put it all out of my mind before turning out the light to go to bed, but I have to admit to being generally more easily startled whilst I’m writing a horror novel! I think probably the most challenging thing about writing any horror book is to come up with convincing motivations for the main characters to stay in the haunted location, or make it so that they’re unable to leave. We’ve all seen those horror films where the characters just keep returning to the haunted house for no explicable reason, and that’s always frustrating.

In this young adult horror novel, a girl staying on a remote island suspects the tiny Victoria-era dolls in her family’s old mansion are up to murder. I obviously did a lot of research about Frozen Charlottes. I also researched other famous haunted dolls, such as Annabelle and Robert. A common theme seemed to be for a child to be given a haunted doll that caused all kinds of problems in the house, which was blamed on the child at first, until the parents came to believe that the doll moved around by itself, or when there was no one home. This is horror. Torn between needing to know and fearing for the characters, I read this fast... Compulsive. -- Dawn Woods NetGalley I stumbled across the Frozen Charlotte dolls whilst doing research online one day and the idea for the story basically came from there. I thought they were so deliciously creepy and unusual, as well as not being all that well known, so it seemed like a great starting point for a horror novel. I didn’t know exactly how things were going to play out before I started but I had a rough idea. I prefer not to plan my books in too much detail but I do like to know how the book will end.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. Hello Yellow - 80 Books to Help Children Nurture Good Mental Health and Support With Anxiety and Wellbeing - The winners of The Farshore Reading for Pleasure Teacher Awards 2023, highlighting the work schools are doing to encourage a love of reading, have... Learn more about marbles, dominos, dice, toy vehicles, and more found on beaches around the world. Articles ›