Those who pick up the book for the mystery angle must be patient it does not begin in earnest until roughly a third into the novel. A brooding loner, Juliet lives with her aloof, divorced father in a Victorian mansion, a house that, Gilda is convinced, ""has a secret to reveal."" After learning that Juliet's aunt jumped to her death from the top of the estate's tower-and that Juliet has encountered what appears to be her aunt's ghost inside the house-Gilda is determined to communicate with the dead woman and to uncover the details surrounding the tragedy. She focuses primarily on the last-mentioned pursuit when she finagles an invitation to San Francisco to visit her mother's second cousin, Lester Splinter, whom she has never met, and then discovers he has a daughter Gilda's age named Juliet. Gilda's current ""career"" encompasses three activities: writing novels, spying on neighbors and developing her psychic abilities. Allison's debut novel introduces a spunky, appealingly eccentric 13-year-old who identifies with Harriet the Spy and may well rival her for readers' affections.
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