Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator [Paperback]

Ever since her father died, quirky Gilda Joyce has been working hard to sharpen her psychic skills. She's determined to communicate with spirits from the Other Side and become a crack investigator of spooky, twisted mysteries. After wrangling an invitation to visit relatives in San Francisco, Gilda discovers that her dreary, tight-lipped uncle and his strange, delicate daughter need her help to uncover the terrible family secret that has a tortured ghost stalking their home. From poignant to hair-raising and hilarious, this is a behind-the-scenes, tell-all account of the very first case in the illustrious career of Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator. Zany, likable Gilda Joyce deserves a place right next to her inspiration, Harriet the Spy. -School Library Journal, starred review

Gilda's earnest and wacky personality accompanied by her dry wit make this an amusing as well as suspenseful mystery. -Kirkus ReviewsI grew up in a small town in Michigan where there wasn’t much for kids to do for fun except ride a bike down a dirt road to the local Dairy Queen, or better yet, to the public library. My two younger brothers and I didn’t have easy access to a swimming pool, movie theater or cable television, but we did have open fields, woods, marshland, old barns, and half-built houses to explore – places that really sparked our imaginations. One of my best friends lived on a sheep farm, and we used to conduct séances in the spooky atmosphere of the barn hayloft near her house (the memory of some of those activities may have influenced Gilda’s fascination with parapsychology and the occult in Gilda Joyce: Psychic Investigator). I spent long, humid summers reading every book our wonderful local librarian recommended: she had a talent for handing any young person a perfectly selected story.

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