This book focuses on Jim who's father just got a job as a Master Gardener on an old English estate, Minerva Hall. His mother recently died and Jim and his little sister, Sal, and his dad are learning to cope with the loss and survive as a family. Jim starts hearing and seeing things. "Someone" is telling him to "hunt for the seventh"....the seventh what?? The story unfolds slowly and you're not really sure what it's all about for sure. Jim has a few spooky experiences and he soon realizes that there have been six children in Minerva Hall that have died over the years and the ghosts of these children want him to find the seventh child. It really starts to pick up halfway through and it was hard to put it down....the ending is a total surprise and everything is explained. (Thank goodness-I can't stand it when some major loose ends are left hanging!) ( )

When his father starts a new job at Minerva Hall as gardener, twelve-year-old Jim discovers an ancient curse that needs to be unraveled before disaster happens.

I found this a hard story to get into. It seemed like it took to long for the author to get Jim to the point where he started understanding that he was supposed to be looking for something or someone. I really could not feel much sympathy for or real interest in any of the characters. I also wondered at how Jim could put aside the possibility of his father losing his job and continue searching for more clues. I might have found more believable if he had had any kind of inclination towards some kind of impending disaster.

The story was all right, but it would not be my first choice to recommend to someone looking for a good, shivery ghost story. I guess that I do not always pick really good stories to read--oh well. ( )

Jim’s family moves into the elegant Minerva Estate after his father is hired as the head gardener. The lord of the manor, Minerva himself, hates children and warns Jim and his sister, Sally that if he sees them snooping around his property their father will lose his job. Of course, if you tell a boy not to do something, what do you think happens?

As Jim explores the grounds he runs into a boy he nicknames Einstein. Einstein informs Jim that there are six other children on the grounds, and Jim is eager to meet them until he realizes the horrible truth: the other children are ghosts, the victims of a curse upon the manor. Every thirty years, it seems, a child dies on the Summer Solstice. As he continues his explorations and deciphers cryptic clues, Jim realizes he must find the seventh child fated to die – as mentioned in the curse – to prevent another tragic death and a terrible fate for the residents of a nearby village.

The Hunt for the Seventh was excellent, a delightfully creepy mystery. Set in a sprawling English estate, the story has a wonderful blend of ancient traditions, pagan rites, idyllic countryside and adventure for young Jim. As Jim’s the narrator, there’s an element of uncertainty from the beginning: it’s revealed that his mother has died recently, and throughout the book the reader is left wondering if the ghosts are even real. Is Jim just imagining them as a coping mechanism for his mother’s death? The pitiable children who were killed by the curse each have their own story to tell, but ultimately they remain shades, mere wisps of the past. A huge surprise twist at the end of the book took me completely off guard, and really helped make this book a great pre-Halloween read for kids in elementary/early middle school. I found it great fun, and the perfect book to open up my October reviews. ( )

This was a very entertaining children/young adult mystery book. The plot was complicated enough to be interesting, but not so complicated as to become convoluted. Like Creepers, “The Hunt for the Seventh” does not contain sex or foul language. There was some violence, but it was all either accidental (something tipping over and falling on someone) or mostly implied - really spectacularly little violence for what is essentially a murder mystery.

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience reading “The Hunt for the Seventh” and I hope Ms. Morton-Shaw keeps writing. ( )