Marianne and the Magic Drawing Pencil Series by Catherine Storr

Ill and bored with having to stay in bed, Marianne picks up a pencil and starts doodling - a house, a garden, a boy at the window. That night she has an extraordinary dream. She is transported into her own picture, and as she explores further she soon realises she is not alone. The boy at the window is called Mark, and his every movement is guarded by the menacing stone watchers that surround the solitary house. Together, in their dreams, Marianne and Mark must save themselves...

Brighton is a good place for a holiday, but not when you are fourteen years old, with no one to talk to and nothing to do. Marianne is so desperately lonely that almost any friend seems better than none. This tensely exciting story is also a perceptive and sympathetic study of the problems of growing up.