American millionaire Hiram C. Hopgood will stop at nothing to make his daughter, Helen, happy-even if it means buying her an ancient Scottish castle and shipping it back to Texas. Assembling the castle isn't a problem for the oil tycoon . . . it's the ghosts that worry him. Hopgood has made up his mind: the ghouls have got to go. But these spirits don't spook so easily. Instead, they make their way to America, where they meet up with a magical severed hand and three fiendish, cross-dressing kidnappers for a Texassized adventure with a ghostly Scottish flair.

Eva Ibbotson, born Maria Charlotte Michelle Wiesner (1925-2010), was an Austrian-born British novelist, known for her children's books. Some of her novels for adults have been successfully reissued for the young adult market in recent years. For the historical novel Journey to the River Sea (Macmillan, 2001), she won the Smarties Prize in category 9-11 years, garnered unusual commendation as runner-up for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, and made the Carnegie Medal, Whitbread Award, and Blue Peter Book Award shortlists. She was a finalist for the 2010 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize at the time of her death. Her last book, The Abominables, was one of eight books on the longlist for the same award in 2012.

Kevin Hawkes is the author and illustrator of The Wicked Big Toddlah and The Wicked Big Toddlah Goes to New York, and is the illustrator of many well-loved books for young readers including Imagine That ! How Dr. Seuss Wrote the Cat in the Hat, Library Lion, My Little Sister Ate One Hare, My Little Sister Hugged an Ape, And to Think That We Thought That We'd Never Be Friends, The Road to Oz, Velma Gratch, and The Way Cool Butterfly. He lives in Gorham, Maine.