Curse of the Abandoned Gold Mine

Some rules are meant to be followed. But for an eleven-year-old adventurer, a warning sign is just the start of the map. Eleven-year-old Aiden doesn't mean to cause trouble—he just has a professional dedication to exploring the wild hills surrounding Blackwood Village, Scotland. During a strict school field trip near the region's abandoned 19th-century gold mining territory, Aiden and his safety-obsessed best friend, Iain—who tracks every hazard on a digital watch and clings to his yellow backpack like body armor—slip away from the path to check out a mysterious ridge. The ground gives way, plunging them deep into a vertical air shaft and straight down into a dark, sprawling labyrinth of forgotten mining tunnels. But they aren't alone down there. Awoken by their intrusion is the grumpy, shimmering ghost of an ancient Victorian miner guarding his legendary lode with an iron pickaxe and a terrifying, bone-chilling frost. To make it out of the mountain alive and catch the last school bus home, Aiden and Iain will have to outsmart a vengeful phantom, navigate a crumbling cave-in, and survive a high-speed shortcut down a mountain path. Packed with high-stakes danger, laugh-out-loud humor, and supernatural thrills, Curse of the Abandoned Gold Mine is an action-packed middle-grade adventure about legendary history, close calls, and an unbreakable friendship.