Flame — Carla Buckley

Suitable for young adults and adults who enjoy young adult literature.Fifteen year old Sophie is a lonely girl whose father died. A lonely girl whose mother cares more about drinking than she does about Sophie. Tormented by dreams of her Father Ben's tragic death, a ghostly boy and a blue door; she dreams of another world residing behind that blue door. At a new school, where she's not popular with the teachers or the other pupils, Sophie meets Leila who suffers the taunts of the school bullies. Together they develop a close friendship, bonded by their unpopularity and unhappy home lives. Spending time walking across Mill Fields to avoid going back to their miserable homes, Sophie leads Leila to an old derelict house ‘Sunflower Cottage.' The house inspires much curiosity in the girls and promises to be a safe haven from their everyday lives. After a bad few days at home the girls decide to return to the house, not as curious visitors but as runaways. To Sophie's surprise they find the blue door which draws them into a dangerous world with no obvious way of return; where danger resides in the house's very foundations.