A gripping, heartfelt mystery that deftly balances age-appropriate scares and serious themes.
A 13-year-old paranormal sleuth faces an influx of vampires in Martin’s middle-grade novel, one in a series.
Elderton, North Carolina may seem like any old small town, but it’s home to Dotty Morgan, a clever paranormal detective. Despite her success as a sleuth, her school life hasn’t exactly gotten easier, as Dotty still faces daily teasing from boys on the basketball team. And even though she’s spent the past year training at the local MMA studio, she’s not much use in a fight; after she and her girlfriend, Hannah, are attacked in the locker room following one of Hannah’s wrestling matches, this reality is thrown into stark relief. The incident leaves the girls shaken, and when strange rumors and shadowy strangers begin to circulate, Dotty’s detective instincts kick into overdrive. Her suspicions are confirmed when a swarm of vampires descends on the town for a sinister gathering known as the Fifty-Year Feast (“This cycle will herald an era of unrivaled strength and prosperity”). The arrival of a vampire hunter adds another wrinkle when Dotty discovers that not all vampires are monsters. Still, she can’t ignore the ones who thirst for blood and power, and with Hannah benched by a sledding injury, Dotty will have to investigate without her usual backup. Helping her along the way is her fashion-obsessed friend Parker, whose style and confidence bring levity and warmth to the bleak, snowbound mystery. The narrative juggles horror, mystery, and moral tension with remarkable grace. Readers will admire Dotty’s courage and vulnerability as she navigates her various relationships and the fine line between good and evil. The pacing never lags as each revelation raises the stakes and forces Dotty to make choices with far-reaching consequences. The novel explores themes of bravery and kindness in an easy-to-follow manner. The vampires are frightening, but the story’s power comes from its acknowledgment of the value of different kinds of abilities, the bonds of friendship and young love, and the hero’s determination to do what’s right, no matter what.
A gripping, heartfelt mystery that deftly balances age-appropriate scares and serious themes.Pub Date: today
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A didactic blueprint disguised as a supernatural treasure map.
A girl who delights in the macabre harnesses her inherited supernatural ability.
It’s not just her stark white hair that makes 11-year-old Zee Puckett stand out in nowheresville Knobb’s Ferry. She’s a storyteller, a Mary Shelley fangirl, and is being raised by her 21-year-old high school dropout sister while their father looks for work upstate (cue the wayward glances from the affluent demography). Don’t pity her, because Zee doesn’t acquiesce to snobbery, bullying, or pretty much anything that confronts her. But a dog with bleeding eyes in a cemetery gives her pause—momentarily—because the beast is just the tip of the wicked that has this way come to town. Time to get some help from ghosts. The creepy supernatural current continues throughout, intermingled with very real forays into bullying (Zee won’t stand for it or for the notion that good girls need to act nice), body positivity, socio-economic status and social hierarchy, and mental health. This debut from a promising writer involves a navigation of caste systems, self-esteem, and villainy that exists in an interesting world with intriguing characters, but they receive a flat, two-dimensional treatment that ultimately makes the book feel like one is learning a ho-hum lesson in morality. Zee is presumably White (as is her rich-girl nemesis–cum-comrade, Nellie). Her best friend, Elijah, is cued as Black. Warning: this just might spur frenzied requests for Frankenstein.
A didactic blueprint disguised as a supernatural treasure map. (Supernatural. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-304460-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child...
A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.
Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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