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Haunted Christmas: author Allison Rushby on the inspiration behind The Ghost Locket

December 14th 2022

About Allison Rushby

Based in Queensland, Australia, Allison Rushby is a freelance writer and editor and has written multiple middle grade and teen fiction, including The Turnkey of High Gate Cemetery. She is helped by her two assistants: Harry the Bordoodle and Titus the sphinx cat. In 2023, she is releasing her first early years series.

On a Christmas trip to Europe, author Allison Rushby visited Dennis Severs' House, a Grade II-listed museum in London that visually tells the story of an imaginary family from the 1790s to the present day. Allison shares with us what she discovered there, and how the house inspired her spooky festive tale, The Ghost Locket...

Stepping into history

I’ll never forget the moment I set foot in the door of Dennis Severs’ House. All I knew is that it seemed to be a sort of "not museum" – instead a kind of historical art installation – a mishmash of time periods and drama. Crossing its threshold for the first time was surreal – rather like stepping into an oil painting. The house was lit entirely by candlelight and moving from room to room, for someone who writes historical fiction, was a transformative experience.

Until that moment, I hadn’t realised there was a way for me to step inside my work. There was the kitchen with its huge wooden table and translucent shining jellies and sugar mice; mismatched crockery and strings of gingerbread over the hearth. There was the Victorian parlour crammed full of garlands of holly and Christmas tree glass ornaments and Victorian Christmas cards. I gasped my way around the whole house, drinking it all in.

And I knew, knew, knew that I would set a book in a place just like it.

Writing the (festive) haunted home

The house in The Ghost Locket isn't Dennis Severs’ House, but it's like it in many ways. For Lolli, the heroine, the house is the place that haunts her dreams, giving her nightmares almost every single night. Unfortunately for Lolli, it's also where she's having to spend quite a bit of time as her guardian, Freya, helps to get the house ready for its yearly Christmas installation. Lolli finally comes to realise she's going to have to confront her fears surrounding the house and help to free the ghosts who inhabit the house's walls by locating a locket that's been missing for many years. In finding the inner-strength to do so, she frees not only the ghosts, but herself.

I so hope readers enjoy The Ghost Locket as much as I enjoyed re-living my magical white Christmas.

The Ghost Locket

It's Christmas, and eleven-year-old Lolli must must face her fears and enter the spooky Victorian house her family looks after. Soon enough, she has to make things right for two ghosts that inhabit this house - one friendly and one decidedly not - and open her guarded heart to people in both the living and twilight worlds.

Our reviewers loved the setting and ghostly theme, particularly its "scary, sinister ghost who keeps the pages turning". They added that it's a great spooky read for the festive season!