The Weirdstone of Brisingamen

A girl and her brother are pursued by a sorceress and an evil wizard when it is learned that the girl possesses a stone of great power. The children travel through tunnels and mountains and come up against some horribly scary creatures.

I felt much better about my meh attitude toward this book when I read that the author himself became bored with the characters and delayed writing a planned third book in the series and called the novel “a fairly bad book.”