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The Ghost Sonata (Gilda Joyce) |  | Author: Jennifer Allison
Publisher: Puffin
List Price: $7.99
Buy New: $3.99
as of 11/24/2009 12:34 CST details
You Save: $4.00 (50%)
New (30) Used (13) from $3.79
Seller: smokymtnbooks
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 173399
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 0142412325
EAN: 9780142412329
ASIN: 0142412325
Publication Date: October 30, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Gilda Joyces best friend, Wendy Choy, is chosen to participate in a piano competition in Oxford, England, so of course super-sleuth Gilda finds a way to go too. Once there, the grueling practice schedule takes a backseat to strange and spooky occurrences. There are foreboding tarot cards that keep appearing to the participants and ominous numbers etched in frosty windowpanes. But even more chilling are Wendys ghostly nightmares of a young boyand the haunting melody she cant shake out of her mind. Could there be a sinister connection to the piano competition? Gilda has a genuine haunting on her hands, and solving this one will take every ounce of psychic intuition shes got!
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
A Fun read!!!! November 18, 2009
BookChick Mom (Saint Charles, Mo USA)
My daughter and I are members of a Mother-Daughter book club. Gilda Joyce The Ghost Sonata was assigned for October's reading. My daughter and I read the book together and the book had us hooked. The book is funny, and suspenseful. Every time I thought I could guess what was next, something else happened. I got a few goose bumps while reading this book.
The story takes place in Oxford, a great setting for ghost!! The description of the scenes made the reader feel as if you were there. Gilda is a confident, corky dressing, investigator. Gilda manages to get into rather odd situations throughout the book, and that just adds to the strength of her character. Jennifer Allison has a skillful way of developing the characters as well as weaving in details to create a suspenseful adventure in The Ghost Sonata.
At our book club meeting the girls were just delighted when recounting scenes in the book. Even us Moms had a lot of laughs while discussing Gilda's character and adventures in the story. Many of us decided we are going to read the series so we can have more "Gilda". It is important to note that the book stood fine on it's own with out reading the books in order of the series. I would recommend this book, and I am looking forward to reading the series; it is cleverly written and is quite entertaining.
Exactly what I needed to read! December 28, 2008
Veronica R. Tabares (Seattle, WA USA)
I liked the first two Gilda Joyce books, but I love this one!
Wendy, Gilda's best friend, plays a starring role in "The Ghost Sonata", and I find her thoroughly charming. Her no-nonsense, feet-planted-firmly-on-the-floor style is the perfect match for Gilda's flightiness.
The friendship of the two girls reminds me why it is important to have good friends. I enjoyed my time with Gilda and Wendy very much. I even stayed up way too late to finish the book!
My ten year old son couldn't wait to begin reading THE GHOST SONATA... April 19, 2008
L. C. Thomas (Ann Arbor, MI)
...but I wouldn't let him have it until I was done! Like my son, I am a big fan of the Gilda Joyce series. I read a lot of young adult fiction, and I have found the Gilda Joyce books to be not only highly entertaining but compelling in their exploration of 'tween experiences; how kids that age create such a vivid blend of imagination and reality to make sense of their emerging understanding of the adult world.
THE GHOST SONATA is my favorite Gilda to date. I almost never laugh out loud when reading, but the mix of humor and dread in the tarot reading scene at the airport put me over the edge with laughter. The humor throughout the book was wonderful. Wendy's competition rivals were so much fun. Her piano teacher was appealingly zany and a bit treacherous. And the competition judges and the rivalries that played out in their comments to the contestants were an absolute riot. Allison gives us an entertaining insider's view of the workings of a major piano competition. Having Gilda act as Wendy's page turner and the unexpected consequences this brings is an inspired bit of humor.
I also loved the central mystery, with Wendy being a ghost's chosen medium for his final, secret sonata. It's a rich metaphor for resolution to the guilt and grief associated with a tragic death. I also found the local color and texture of Oxford and the English countryside both amusing and touching. I particularly liked the scenes by the treacle well. Spooky and evocative. Allison drew the rich history of the places, especially with the associations to ALICE IN WONDERLAND, with such detail, yet always kept the tone and action appealingly spooky and light.
Wendy has always been my favorite character besides Gilda herself, so I was happy to have her point of view balanced with Gilda's. I loved the theme of a reasonable person having to confront and ultimately accept something unexpected and unexplainable. It's a parable of faith for my son to think about, since he is at the age where he is asking a lot of questions about faith and chance circumstances that can't easily be explained. I was intrigued by Wendy's personal journey to an adult understanding of artistic freedom and faith in her own abilities. Allison portrays Wendy's gradual moving away from pleasing her piano teacher and committing to her own artistic expression with realism and insight. I found this aspect of the novel particularly touching.
The fact that Jennifer Allison can bring togother so many serious themes - faith, love, death, redemption, adult regrets contrasting with young peoples' emerging identities of hope and confidence, not to mention a whole host of literary touchtones that adults will recognize - in such an entertaining story and fun cast of characters is, I feel, a rare accomplishment in literature for any age group. Kudos to Allison. My son can't wait to get started on THE GHOST SONATA, and I can't wait to talk to him about it.
 Disappointing November 16, 2007
Reader
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
The first two entries in this series were laugh out loud funny and didn't require any suspension of disbelief in ghosts -- the mysteries were perfectly explainable without any resort to the supernatural. The protagonist's obsession with ghostly explanations could easily be understood in terms of her desire to find a way to communicate with her dead father. In this third volume, there are no longer any rational explanations. The only solution to the mystery requires you to assume the involvement of an other-worldly spirit. Here, the author took the easy way out. I hope she returns to the real world in the next installment.
Jennifer Allison DOES IT AGAIN October 7, 2007
M. Angell (USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Yet this book can't get any better. Mystery, adventure, comedy... this book has it all! IF you're looking for a good read this is a way to go. It's about a girl named Gilda and her best friend Wendy. Wendy is chosen to go play in a piano competition in England. Gilda wants to come along and she finds a way to get there. As they go on the plane Gilda shows Wendy her reading of cards(like a fortune teller Gilda's into that she 's a "investigator") The reading turns out to be horrible and the tarot cards keep finding their way into Wendy's dorm room. The piano competition is tough, meanwhile Wendy thinks she going crazy. With a murder investigation near the end and a couple quirky mysteries 13 year old Gilda Joyce battles her way through the English world finding out that being an "investigator" can be scary sometimes!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
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