Frozen Charlotte: 1 (Red Eye, 1)

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Sophie's cousins and the miniature 'Frozen Charlotte' dolls are not as they seem and soon events spiral out of control. I thought it captured the mood of the book really well and looked suitably spooky without giving too much away. It’s widely believed that Victorian children were well-aware of the origin story of these dolls and played with them nonetheless.

The idea was supposed to be that children would make dresses for them out of any spare fabric their mothers might have lying around. The abrupt ending may irritate some, but slasher fans will nevertheless enjoy trying to figure out who the menacing person hiding behind a mask is. After all, many aspects of Victorian culture are openly macabre and death-obsessed, so this grisly historical narrative isn’t entirely outlandish. The setting is reminiscent of Scream’s Woodsboro, and Preston makes good use of spooky Halloween decorations.This second instalment sees us back in 1910, so that we can investigate the origin story of these murderous dolls. Charles agreed, and off they sped into the dark, frosty night as Charlotte’s worried mother watched from her doorway. She picked out a gorgeous gown to wear, quite certain that no other woman would be her equal that evening.

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. Frozen Charlotte dolls were popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. You can find some quite interesting, and perfectly ghoulish, upcycled jewellery on places like Etsy, which are made from broken pieces of the dolls. Smaller versions of the dolls were also known as penny dolls, because they were often sold for a cent.Both Charlotte books hit the nail on the dead, having an excellent balance of fast placed plot, the supernatural, characters you care about, and nasty little dolls . Suspenseful chases and mysterious sightings interspersed with an occasional dead body keep the pacing fast and consistent. This book is a real page turner and the tone is dark and cold which matches the setting of a small Scottish island perfectly. 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.

We follow Sophie to her family home where she meets her cousins, each as strange as the last and each hiding dark secrets Sophie needs to uncover before she finds herself the next victim of "Frozen Charlotte". S. by Germany in the mid-1800s, they were quickly and commonly dubbed “Frozen Charlottes” and their male counterparts “Frozen Charlies. For example, it occurred to me that by using a Ouija app, rather than an actual board, there was scope to do a couple of extra creepy things – such as have a strange song play from the phone, for the screen to crack etc. This is pretty remarkable, considering the near-universal belief that this time period was the origin of the dolls’ name. They have quite a special relationship so I especially enjoyed the scenes where these two feature together.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. For some years these ranged from dolphin trainer to animal shelter vet but then, at fifteen, she had an epiphany involving John and Robert Kennedy and decided to become a lawyer instead. 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. Charlotte’s mother pleaded, “Now Daughter dear, put this blanket around you for it’s a dreadful night and you’ll catch your death of cold.