Books with author Sherrie Gavin

Tillybrook Avenue has two new residents, 11 year old Violet Brown and her mother, Samantha. What they know about Tillybrook Avenue is that it’s all they can afford. When Violet looks out of her bedroom window, she is met with the truly awful sight of a very run down and neglected theatre. But what she doesn’t know, not yet at least, is that her new street is home to one of New York’s best kept secrets, Tillybrook, New York’s Theatre for Ghosts. It is here where a remarkable community of ghosts take to the stage, performing, singing, dancing for New York’s deceased. For over a hundred years, this undiscovered world has remained very strictly a “members” only establishment. However, a chance purchase in a rather ramshackle charity shop is the turning point. Violet buys something which creates a powerful connection between her and Tillybrook theatre.Violet’s curiosity cannot be contained. Stowed away in the theatre’s prop store, she is overwhelmed by what she witnesses on that first night. But then she’s discovered and the inhabitants of Tillybrook soon learn that a living girl is amongst them.This extraordinary happening is met with much interest by the ghosts and perhaps none more keenly felt than that of the floating, severed hands belonging to Frederique, a fatality of the Great War, whose sole ambition is to be reunited with a body.However, for the most part, the ghosts warmly welcome Violet. She, in turn, falls in love with both the theatre life and its rather strange residents. Tillybrook has a creativity energy which surpasses anything which Violet has seen before, due in no small part to the stage and production legend which is Ms Blanche Cartwright. Visiting the theatre, Violet finds the most unlikely, but best possible friend, in the 10 year old Japanese ghost, YoYo. He introduces her to a whole other side of New York, a side which belongs exclusively to the deceased. Together, they steal away with a bunch of Rag ‘n’ Bone collectors, who take them on a ghostly tour of New York at night. The highlight of which is a visit to the Night Carnival, held in New York’s Central Park.However, Violet’s love of the Tillybrook is about to come crashing down, quite literally. The theatre has been sold to a property developer. When the demolition team arrive at Tillybrook with their wrecking ball, it seems the ghosts’ fate is sealed. They are to be homeless. There is nothing they can do to change the events in the outside world. They have no connection with that. However, Violet does. Tasked with what feels like mission impossible, it falls on Violet’s shoulders to save the theatre and its ghosts.She needs a plan. Violet must focus all her efforts on the property developer, the formidable Thomas Stern. He is resolute in his plans for the theatre. Just what will it take to save Tillybrook and its ghosts?

Visitors to Marsden Manor are not welcome. That’s not to say that its inhabitants, 10 year old Jodie, her Finnish Grandmother, Hanny and her father, Mikka, are cruel, vile types. Quite the contrary. However, nobody must ever find out about the family’s secret. A veil of mystery surrounds the strange goings on at Marsden Manor, in particular, Mikka’s job. You see, his employer sends him to a distant world which is soon to be plunged into eternal darkness. On this land the sun is dying and it’s Mikka’s job to locate as many of the indigenous creatures which inhabit this place and escort them to a new world which can sustain life. However, the distances involved are immense and sometimes the animals are not well enough to travel. So, their journey is split with a short stay at Marsden Manor. Jodie’s home opens its doors to an array of strange and beautiful animals. The first to arrive are the Hoop Tail Monkeys, followed by the Sumo Wrestling Bears and then the Spineless Chickens. However, something travels back with Mikka and takes up residency at Marsden Manor, something both unexpected and unwanted – The BuddiesThe buddies are the most cute, adorable little creatures ever to be seen. They use all of this cuteness to capture the unquestioning affection of their host, the humans. Their population swells at phenomenal rate and soon everyone in Jodie’s village and beyond has a buddy. However, the buddies have a more sinister side, one which they keep well hidden from their hosts. The human population is facing a crisis of gigantic proportions but they are too in love with their new, little companions to even notice. Who will save the human race? Who will send the buddies back to where they belong?