---
product_id: 30649236
title: "Serafina and the Black Cloak-The Serafina Series Book 1"
price: "17955CFA"
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reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.sn/products/30649236-serafina-and-the-black-cloak-the-serafina-series-book-1
store_origin: SN
region: Senegal
---

# Serafina and the Black Cloak-The Serafina Series Book 1

**Price:** 17955CFA
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- **What is this?** Serafina and the Black Cloak-The Serafina Series Book 1
- **How much does it cost?** 17955CFA with free shipping
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## Description

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING SERIES! "The story drips with suspense, wrapping readers into the narrative just as easily as the man in the black cloak binds his young victims. Serafina’s friendship with Braeden is heartfelt and believable... mystery fans will enjoy this book. " ―School Library Journal “The chills and adventure will… surely please.” ―Booklist “Never go into the deep parts of the forest, for there are many dangers there, and they will ensnare your soul.” Serafina has never had a reason to disobey her pa and venture beyond the grounds of Biltmore Estate.There’s plenty to explore in her grand home, although she must take care to never be seen. None of the rich folk upstairs know that Serafina exists; she and her pa, the estate’s maintenance man, have secretly lived in the basement for as long as Serafina can remember. But when children at the estate start disappearing, only Serafina knows who the culprit is:a terrifying man in a black cloak who stalks Biltmore’s corridors at night. Following her own harrowing escape, Serafina risks everything by joining forces with Braeden Vanderbilt, the young nephew of Biltmore’s owners. Braeden and Serafina must uncover the Man in the Black Cloak’s true identity…before all of the children vanish one by one. Serafina’s hunt leads her into the very forest that she has been taught to fear. There she discovers a forgotten legacy of magic, one that is bound to her own identity. In order to save the children of Biltmore, Serafina must seek the answers that will unlock the puzzle of her past. Read the entire New York Times Best-Selling series! Serafina and the Black Cloak (book 1) Serafina and the Twisted Staff (book 2) Serafina and the Splintered Heart (book 3) Serafina and the Seven Stars (book 4)

Review: Engrossing and entertaining! - As a fiction editor, I find it difficult to turn off my inner editor when I’m reading for my own pleasure, so I tend to be more critical (I call it discerning) than many other readers. I’ll often put a book down after a few pages or chapters because of various “flaws” that have jolted me out of the story. This means I rarely get to experience the joy I used to of losing myself in a wonderful tale. So I’m always thrilled and grateful when I find a rare book that will draw me in and continue to enthrall me till the end. Serafina and the Black Cloak definitely hooked me from the start and kept me eagerly turning the pages every night, then during my lunch breaks. I received this book in the mail as an ARC for review, and when I first took it out of the wrapping, I loved the cover, and reading the back cover copy immediately piqued my interest, so I couldn’t wait to check it out. I was intrigued from the very first sentence, which set the tone for the rest of the novel: “Serafina opened her eyes and scanned the darkened workshop, looking for any rats stupid enough to come into her territory while she slept.” I was definitely hooked and eagerly looked forward to my nightly escape into Serafina’s fascinating world, cheering her on, wondering where she came from, why she was different, and how she got her special powers. And it wasn’t long before I started worrying about her, as well as her pa and her friend Braedon – not to mention the innocent children who were disappearing nightly! I absolutely loved Serafina, with her spunk and courage, and all her unanswered questions about who she is and how she ended up living her clandestine life in the basement of a huge mansion in North Carolina at the end of the nineteenth century. Hiding by day, Serafina prowls by night to help rid the mansion of its rats and also to explore the rest of the mansion and its grounds. Hers is a lonely life, with just her and her pa, until she meets Braedon Vanderbilt. Both in need of a friend, they join forces to find and defeat the Man in the Black Cloak, who is abducting children. With his skillful depiction of the various details of the mansion and the people living and visiting there, not to mention the surrounding forest and all its creatures, the talented author, Robert Beatty, succeeded in vividly bringing this story world and its fascinating characters to life for me. I continued to be entranced by Serafina and her life after I closed the book each night. As a former middle-grade English teacher and school librarian, I highly recommend this book to anyone aged about ten and up. I know I’d be raving about it to my students, and would purchase several copies for the library.
Review: The Serafina series is absolutely wonderful! - I am privileged to have received an advanced reader copy of a captivating new book entitled Serafina and the Twisted Staff, which was written by author Robert Beatty. This fast paced mystery book is the second one in a series about a young girl whose existence has been kept a secret by her pa who lives in the basement of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. By creating his story as historical fiction, the author places the reader into the elegant 1899 lifestyle of the Vanderbilts who live at their elaborately decorated Biltmore mansion. He skillfully weaves local history into a suspenseful tale that shocks, as well as excites both the middle school students it is recommended for and all of the adults who can't get enough of this delightful story! The richness of the language used by Mr. Beatty is impressive and often borders on poetic. The author's vivid descriptions added to the excellent and respectful use of regional dialect allows readers to easily sense and visualize exactly what happens as Serafina and her friend Braeden Vanderbilt sneak around to investigate mysterious houseguests and search for clues about the dangerous things that have been taking place. This unlikely friendship grows as the two explore Biltmore and the surrounding forests and battle powerful evil threats as they solve the spooky, rather complex mystery. In the first book, Serafina and the Black Cloak, Serafina aches to understand why her pa had been hiding her for the first 12 years of her life. Throughout the second book, Serafina and the Twisted Staff, this young protagonist is pulled toward her destiny as she continues to grapple with loyalty decisions and finds even more surprising discoveries about her own origins. Though Serafina is exhausted from dealing with the Man in the Black Cloak in the first book, she is immediately drawn into a new and very serious threat that involves both the Biltmore Estate and the people and animals she is trying to protect there. The depth of the language, multiple understories, and wisdom woven into the complex plot make this an exciting read! As a 5th grade teacher in departmentalized English classrooms, I recently used both books as high interest mentor texts to help my students prepare for Virginia’s high stakes tests. The text of both books offered many possibilities for correlation to the Virginia standards and the local pacing guides for teachers. My students absolutely loved that I read the Serafina books orally as we reviewed story structure, characterization, figurative language, genre, point of view, and use of context clues! As the heroine of the series, Serafina is strong and courageous. She offers appealing characteristics and is a good role model of perseverance, friendship, and loyalty. Thank you, Mr. Beatty, for writing pure enjoyment for your readers! [...] https://www.desertcart.com/Serafina-Twisted-Staff-Novel/dp/1484775031?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1484775031&linkCode=as2&linkId=KVZGI53YPOD7EMQQ&redirect=true&ref_=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl&tag=robertbeattyc-20 Linda Woodward Jonesville, Virginia

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #32,802 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #230 in Children's Spine-Chilling Horror #309 in Children's Mystery, Detective, & Spy #1,224 in Children's Action & Adventure Books (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 5,854 Reviews |

## Images

![Serafina and the Black Cloak-The Serafina Series Book 1 - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91r-GxactPL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Engrossing and entertaining!
*by J***R on July 14, 2015*

As a fiction editor, I find it difficult to turn off my inner editor when I’m reading for my own pleasure, so I tend to be more critical (I call it discerning) than many other readers. I’ll often put a book down after a few pages or chapters because of various “flaws” that have jolted me out of the story. This means I rarely get to experience the joy I used to of losing myself in a wonderful tale. So I’m always thrilled and grateful when I find a rare book that will draw me in and continue to enthrall me till the end. Serafina and the Black Cloak definitely hooked me from the start and kept me eagerly turning the pages every night, then during my lunch breaks. I received this book in the mail as an ARC for review, and when I first took it out of the wrapping, I loved the cover, and reading the back cover copy immediately piqued my interest, so I couldn’t wait to check it out. I was intrigued from the very first sentence, which set the tone for the rest of the novel: “Serafina opened her eyes and scanned the darkened workshop, looking for any rats stupid enough to come into her territory while she slept.” I was definitely hooked and eagerly looked forward to my nightly escape into Serafina’s fascinating world, cheering her on, wondering where she came from, why she was different, and how she got her special powers. And it wasn’t long before I started worrying about her, as well as her pa and her friend Braedon – not to mention the innocent children who were disappearing nightly! I absolutely loved Serafina, with her spunk and courage, and all her unanswered questions about who she is and how she ended up living her clandestine life in the basement of a huge mansion in North Carolina at the end of the nineteenth century. Hiding by day, Serafina prowls by night to help rid the mansion of its rats and also to explore the rest of the mansion and its grounds. Hers is a lonely life, with just her and her pa, until she meets Braedon Vanderbilt. Both in need of a friend, they join forces to find and defeat the Man in the Black Cloak, who is abducting children. With his skillful depiction of the various details of the mansion and the people living and visiting there, not to mention the surrounding forest and all its creatures, the talented author, Robert Beatty, succeeded in vividly bringing this story world and its fascinating characters to life for me. I continued to be entranced by Serafina and her life after I closed the book each night. As a former middle-grade English teacher and school librarian, I highly recommend this book to anyone aged about ten and up. I know I’d be raving about it to my students, and would purchase several copies for the library.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Serafina series is absolutely wonderful!
*by L***D on July 3, 2016*

I am privileged to have received an advanced reader copy of a captivating new book entitled Serafina and the Twisted Staff, which was written by author Robert Beatty. This fast paced mystery book is the second one in a series about a young girl whose existence has been kept a secret by her pa who lives in the basement of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. By creating his story as historical fiction, the author places the reader into the elegant 1899 lifestyle of the Vanderbilts who live at their elaborately decorated Biltmore mansion. He skillfully weaves local history into a suspenseful tale that shocks, as well as excites both the middle school students it is recommended for and all of the adults who can't get enough of this delightful story! The richness of the language used by Mr. Beatty is impressive and often borders on poetic. The author's vivid descriptions added to the excellent and respectful use of regional dialect allows readers to easily sense and visualize exactly what happens as Serafina and her friend Braeden Vanderbilt sneak around to investigate mysterious houseguests and search for clues about the dangerous things that have been taking place. This unlikely friendship grows as the two explore Biltmore and the surrounding forests and battle powerful evil threats as they solve the spooky, rather complex mystery. In the first book, Serafina and the Black Cloak, Serafina aches to understand why her pa had been hiding her for the first 12 years of her life. Throughout the second book, Serafina and the Twisted Staff, this young protagonist is pulled toward her destiny as she continues to grapple with loyalty decisions and finds even more surprising discoveries about her own origins. Though Serafina is exhausted from dealing with the Man in the Black Cloak in the first book, she is immediately drawn into a new and very serious threat that involves both the Biltmore Estate and the people and animals she is trying to protect there. The depth of the language, multiple understories, and wisdom woven into the complex plot make this an exciting read! As a 5th grade teacher in departmentalized English classrooms, I recently used both books as high interest mentor texts to help my students prepare for Virginia’s high stakes tests. The text of both books offered many possibilities for correlation to the Virginia standards and the local pacing guides for teachers. My students absolutely loved that I read the Serafina books orally as we reviewed story structure, characterization, figurative language, genre, point of view, and use of context clues! As the heroine of the series, Serafina is strong and courageous. She offers appealing characteristics and is a good role model of perseverance, friendship, and loyalty. Thank you, Mr. Beatty, for writing pure enjoyment for your readers! [...] https://www.amazon.com/Serafina-Twisted-Staff-Novel/dp/1484775031?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1484775031&linkCode=as2&linkId=KVZGI53YPOD7EMQQ&redirect=true&ref_=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl&tag=robertbeattyc-20 Linda Woodward Jonesville, Virginia

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 19th Century Biltmore Estate Chills & Reveals
*by E***R on December 27, 2015*

Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC. 1899. Serafina, age 12, is the daughter of a maintenance man employed at the Biltmore Estate. Unknown to the Vanderbilts, Serafina have been secretly living in the basement of the estate for some time. Serafina often struggles with sleeping through the night, so she tends to take walks around the house and grounds while her father sleeps. It is on one of these nightly walks that she sees another young girl being dragged into the basement area by a mysterious man in a long black cloak. Right before her very eyes, Serafina watches this girl just vanish into thin air, mid-cry. Over the following days, more children of Biltmore's guests likewise vanish. Serafina herself knows what's going on, having escaped the clutches of the man herself (though she was never able to get a clear look at his face -- judging from what she did see, she's not even sure if he's entirely human), but she feels no one would accept the truth as she would have to explain it, so she sets out to try to catch the man herself. Teaming up with new friend Braeden, George Vanderbilt's (then owner of Biltmore Estate) nephew, she tries to bait the cloaked man into revealing himself. The plan she comes up with includes going into the very woods that her father has always asked her to avoid... because those woods hold a secret to her lineage she may not be ready to discover. Given that I live just down the road from Biltmore Estate, how could I not give this one a go?! I'll say that it caught me off guard a bit. For a book put out by Disney, geared towards middle-grade readers, this story got waaaay darker than I was expecting! Adult readers will likely be pretty entertained by the mild creepy factor (by adult standards, that is) but yeah, when you picture younger kids reading this, it's hard not to pause every so often and think "Dang, really?!" I'm sure it will be fine for older middle-graders and teen readers, but I would say to parents if you have a bookworm much younger than 8, you might want to give this a read-through before letting them have at it. I could see this being just a wee bit nightmare-inducing for the really young ones. That being said, it's a pretty fun little adventure for fans of mild to moderate spookiness. There's the mysterious cloaked figure (and can I just say I could not get "Man In The Long Black Coat" -- the Joan Osborne version -- out of my head the whole time I was reading this!), scenes in an abandoned graveyard, hair-raising shadows and paranormal connections. The beginning of the story reminded me a bit of the opening scenes of the movie Hocus Pocus, but later it turned more Legend of Sleepy Hollow-ish. I was actually surprised to see absolutely no mention of Biltmore's Halloween Room. It's one of the most famous rooms in the entire estate and would have fit in perfectly with this story! In fact, from a book design perspective, I was thinking it would have been so perfect to incorporate some of the artwork from that room onto the endpages but nope, sadly the reader just gets a solid hunter green inside. Still pretty, but a missed opportunity to be sure. {Reading up on the history of the house, I learned that the artwork in that room only dates back to the 1920s, so historically it would have been inaccurate with the timeline of the book, but I STILL say it would have made for cool endpapers!} I was hoping for a bit more of the actual estate life worked into the story. What was there was kinda neat but also a lot of meh. Maybe I'm spoiled, having been to the actual place myself. There's a sense of grandeur -- which induces daydreams of imagining the sounds of carriage wheels, faint tinklings of a piano, southern winds through the breezeways -- that you instantly get walking on those grounds that I just didn't get with this story. But I will say, it was pretty touching to read such a young character SO willing to always put herself before others, even risking death at one point! Serafina has a real sense of what is right and wrong, finding herself frustrated with the discovery that not everyone in the world shares this gift. She can't comprehend why or how people can go through life deliberately carrying out evil but she doesn't fear doing what needs to be done to set things to rights. I just loved that about her. She also just has a great way of interpreting life in general: "She thought it was interesting how just about everyone had a special talent or skill, something they were naturally drawn to and good at, and then they worked years to master it. Nobody knew how to do everything. It wasn't possible. There wasn't enough time in the night. But everyone knew something. And everyone was a little different. Some people did one thing. Others did another. It made her think that maybe God intended for them to all fit together, like a puzzle made whole." Serafina's friendship with Braeden also tugs at a reader's heartstrings when she discovers that he's struggled for his place in the world just as much as she has, even though he seemingly has all the riches of the world at his feet. Through their talks they discover that before meeting each other, they both desperately craved companionship, having that one friend in the world who just gets you without even trying, that one kindred spirit who doesn't think you're too strange or creepy at all, it's just obvious to them that no one took the time to properly get to know you before. I think that theme of wanting to know where you come from and be with people who love and understand you unconditionally resonated with me more than anything.

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*Last updated: 2026-08-06*