Araminta Spook is just like any girl. She likes bats, ghosts, werewolves and vampires. One of Araminta’s greatest ambitions is to see a ghost, and living in Spook House with her aunt and uncle there is a fair chance she will. Then her Aunt Tabitha drops a bombshell: they are moving. The boiler is a MENACE, plus there are a few other issues relating to dust and spiders. Tabitha is not going to take this lying down and devises an array of Cunning Plans. She is determined to stay, and perhaps there is still a chance her greatest ambition will come true, too…

WHAT'S LURKING IN THE BASEMENT? Araminta thinks something horrible might be hiding in the deep, secret passages of Spook House. She suspects it might be a werewolf. To make matters worse, Uncle Drac's creepy nephew has arrived and is now Wanda's New Best Friend. Araminta finds him (and the situation) very annoying. She has to come up with a cunning plan to reveal what she believes to be true — that there is more to Max than meets the eye — and also figure out what to do about that werewolf. But even the best laid plans don't always work out quite as you'd hoped...

What do you buy someone for their 500th birthday? Araminta is desperately trying to think of the perfect gift for her favourite ghost, Sir Horace, but it’s hard to buy gifts for someone with no specific hobbies, and no body. Then an inspired idea leads to trouble when all does not go as planned, and Araminta wonders whether she’ll ever see Horace or her family again, let alone have time to organise the party.

Septimus Heap, the seventh son of the seventh son, disappears the night he is born, pronounced dead by the midwife. That same night, the baby's father, Silas Heap, comes across an abandoned child in the snow — a newborn girl with violet eyes. The Heaps take her into their home, name her Jenna, and raise her as their own. But who is this mysterious baby girl, and what really happened to their beloved son Septimus?