A nice little horror story for children. There were some similarities to Neil Gaiman's Coraline, but not to the point that one copied the other, rather that there are some conventions to be followed (and Gaiman and Barker have quite similar themes). The main character is a bit grey, but gets more fleshed-out in the second part of the story, and the other children are just interesting enough. A couple of subplots give the whole surroundings a feeling of relevance, and so a somewhat slow beginning with what seems like random fairy-tale elements turns into a suspenseful race with a satisfying ending and only enough unresolved threads to provide a history.