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Summary
Summary
Abandoned by her mother and neglected by her scientist father, timid Elizabeth Murmur has only her fearless friend, Zenobia, for company. And Zenobia's company can be very trying! When Elizabeth's father takes them to live in his family home, Witheringe House, Zenobia becomes obsessed with finding a ghost in the creepy old mansion and forces Elizabeth to hold séances and wander the rooms at night. With Zenobia's constant pushing, Elizabeth investigates the history of the house and learns that it does hold a terrible secret: Her father's younger sister disappeared from the grounds without a trace years ago.
Elizabeth and Zenobia is a wonderfully compelling middle-grade story about friendship, courage, and the power of the imagination.
Author Notes
Jessica Miller is a children's writer and PhD student from Brisbane, Australia. She currently lives in Germany. Elizabeth and Zenobia is her first novel.
Yelena Bryksenkova was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia; grew up in Cleveland; and studied illustration at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore (BFA, 2010) and the Academy of Applied and Decorative Arts in Prague, Czech Republic. She lives in Western New York.
Reviews (5)
Bookseller Publisher Review
Painfully quiet Elizabeth and her delightfully devious and not-quite-imaginary friend Zenobia move into Witheringe House, the old manor where Elizabeth's father spent his childhood. It is also where Elizabeth's aunt Tourmaline vanished at the age of seven, and it is to Zenobia's great surprise that Elizabeth, who is scared of everything from snakes to gloves without hands in them, insists they solve the mystery of Tourmaline's disappearance. There is a lot in Elizabeth and Zenobia that recalls the classic The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I felt the same excitement and anticipation reading Elizabeth and Zenobia's discovery of Witheringe House and its secrets as I did reading Mary Lennox's journey through the gloomy moors of Misselthwaite Manor. As Elizabeth and Zenobia explore the forbidden East Wing of the house further, the dread and mystery slowly builds, and by the time I reached the end of the book my heart was racing and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. I loved Elizabeth and Zenobia. It's the perfect book for 12-year-old readers (and maybe some very brave 11-year-olds) who are looking for a simple, good-old-fashioned scary manor mystery. I cannot wait to hand-sell it. Dani Solomon is a bookseller at Readings Carlton
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-7-After Elizabeth's mother runs off, Elizabeth's botanically inclined father takes her along in a retreat to his childhood home of Witheringe House, a many-roomed mansion on a fog-shrouded green, with an atmosphere that emphasizes the "wither" in its name. Elizabeth's invisible friend, Zenobia, is excited by the change in location: she's always preferred dead trees in a landscape. The possibility that spirits may inhabit the house makes it more enticing to Zenobia, if not to Elizabeth. With Mrs. Purswell keeping house, and Miss Clemency for a tutor, Elizabeth, urged on by Zenobia, still finds time to explore for spirit presence. The story is delightfully creepy, with flickering candles, an amateur séance, a tumbledown gardener's shack, a missing aunt, and wallpaper with a mind of its own. Shiromi Arserio narrates with a gentle English accent, adding just enough petulance to Zenobia's tone when Elizabeth hesitates at entering Witheringe's forbidden East Wing. The black-and-white illustrations channel the spirit of Edward Gorey and are included as a PDF with the audiobook. VERDICT Just the right mix of mysterious and creepy for those not quite ready for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Consider for most middle school collections.-Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Actor Arserio's crisp narration of Miller's middle grade novel captures the moody atmosphere of its gothic setting and the endearing nature of the friendship between its two protagonists. Mixing elements of ghost story and coming-of-age tale, the story follows a young, timid girl named Elizabeth, who, after being abandoned by her mother, moves with her distracted scientist father into his childhood home, an empty mansion called Witheringe House. Lonely and unable to attract her dad's attention, Elizabeth finds companionship in Zenobia, a snarky friend who no one else can see. As Elizabeth and Zenobia roam the mansion, they detect ghosts and spirits that Elizabeth's father and the stoic housekeeper dismiss as figments of Elizabeth's imagination. Arserio reads the tale in low and mysterious tones that add intrigue and suspense. The book balances gruesome, spooky elements with the friendly banter between Elizabeth and Zenobia; Arserio's narration provides the right proportions of tension and humor. Ages 9-13. An Amulet hardcover. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Debut novelist Miller concocts a blend of Gothic horror and spine-tingling mystery. Elizabeth feels lonely and forgotten when her father moves her to his ancestral home, Witheringe House, after her mother abandons the two of them. At least best friend Zenobia has come along, though with her contrary nature, Zenobia is not exactly a comfort. She's also not exactly real. That is, not to anyone except Elizabeth. Aussie Miller sets her tale in the gauzy nebulousness of the early 20th century, delivering a stunning slow burn full of creepy atmospheric tension and heartbreaking loneliness. The back-and-forth dialogue between Elizabeth and her imaginary companion is laced with tensiongive and takeillustrating the tumultuous extremes of Elizabeth's psyche. Add a family nursery and wallpaper gardens in which the plant life appears real, a family cemetery, plus an alter ego in search of spirits from beyond and an ending as unpredictable as the beginning or middleand what readers get is a fascinating tale that feels like Edgar Allen Poe, revisited. Miller's painstaking crafting of language and attention to atmospheric detail create a clever story where nothing is as it seems. Drawings reminiscent of Gorey and references to gloomy classic poetry add beguiling texture. Eerie and dazzlinga perfect book for a dark and stormy afternoon or a favorite graveyard reading spot. (Horror. 9-13) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Elizabeth's best friend Zenobia (others might claim she's imaginary, but she's vividly real to Elizabeth) is utterly convinced there's a ghost at Witheringe House, and she's determined to use all her divining skills to find it. Elizabeth is terrified at the prospect, but she joins the hunt anyway, especially after mysterious pages of a fairy tale about a magical kingdom of plants appear in a book only at midnight, and she learns about her father's late sister, Tourmaline, who disappeared from Witheringe House at age seven. Elizabeth and Zenobia's polar-opposite personalities make the mood pretty playful at the beginning, but debut author Miller keeps the story certifiably eerie, thanks to a creepy gardener, weed-choked hedge maze, and mutating wallpaper in the abandoned nursery. As Elizabeth gets braver and more insistent on finding Tourmaline, Miller amplifies the wondrous-yet-weird elements of Witheringe House until they snowball into ghastly, creeping nightmares. Her spare, evocative language and direct sentences contribute to the suspenseful pacing, particularly toward the end, when the Plant Kingdom gets truly invasive. Comical characters, ghost story tropes, and a lively pair of intrepid protagonists help keep this spooky novel from getting too scary, and Bryksenkova's faux-naïf illustrations contribute. Fans of Kenneth Oppel's The Nest (2015) will appreciate this similarly atmospheric, haunting tale.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2017 Booklist