Review Detail

The Second-Best Haunted Hotel on Mercer Street

Middle Grade Fiction 548

Ghosts Need Jobs, Too

June 07, 2021 (Updated: June 06, 2026)

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

N/A

Writing Style

N/A

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

N/A

Willow Ivan's family has run a haunted hotel for 400 years, although business has not been good lately. Her father is so distraught at the death of her mother that he pays no attention to the business at all, and Willow hasn't been to school in six months. Her mother haunts the hotel, but as a weeping woman who can't remember much, which is difficult. The hotel is staffed with actual ghosts, some of whom, like Pierce, have been there since the beginning. When a chain hotel, the Hauntery, opens up on the same street, everyone is very concerned that this will mean the end of their business. The Hotel Ivan is highly rated according to all of the best haunted hotel measures (like the Zagged guide), but offers a gentler, cozier haunted experience. The Hauntery strives for consistency across locations, so hires ghosts to fill particular roles. Evie and her family work there, and Evie and her cousin play the role of "spooky little girls" who dress in dresses and pigtails, and have a set script of asking people to play with them in a creepy fashion. When Evie goes off script, she gets in trouble with the management. The two girls meet when they both go to the local library and Evie (who is such a new ghost that she can't manipulate material objects) reads a mystery novel over Willow's shoulder. Evie does not tell Willow that she works at the Hauntery, and when Hotel Ivan is in need of a phantasm, Evie offers to work, since that is a role she would like to embrace. The Ivan's ghosts are starting to fade at an alarming rate, and Willow can't quite figure out why. Her investigations also turn up some inconsistencies at the Hauntery, where the big draw for employment is that the employees DON'T fade. As things become more and more dire, will Willow be ableto figure out the threat of the Hauntery, make peace with her parents, and keep the hotel's Zagged rating?

Good Points

I liked the fact that we were immediately plunged into Willow's world, and there were just enough explanation to keep the story going without getting bogged down in details. Details about the difficulties of running a hotel are realistic, and Willow does the best she can. The issue of her truancy is addressed. I liked that she and Evie bonded over a favorite mystery character. The Hauntery is a great, evil corporate entity, and Evie's struggles to retain her identity will resonate with middle grade readers. There is some diversity with Leo, the screaming phantasm, who has another persona as Leonata, a drag performer, and his husband Alfred.

This was a fun romp, but not really very scary, making it perfect for elementary students who want to read about ghosts and their antics, but has enough meat in it that middle school readers who want a book with magical realism will enjoy as well. There's no dearth of haunted house books around, but the fresh spin of working at a haunted hotel will appeal to readers of books like Poblocki's A House of Stone Throw's Island, Paquette's Rules for Ghosting, Salerni's Eleanor and the Roosevelt Ghosts, and Currie's A Peculiar Incident on Shady Street, who are too young for the glorious horror of Alender's The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall or Bell's Frozen Charlotte.