THE HAUNTING OF VELKWOOD

In an oppressive 1980s U.S. suburb, forgotten women locate their power and rescue themselves.

Talitha Velkwood, a stagnant middle-aged woman, is plagued by the tragic and mysterious disappearance of the suburban neighborhood where she grew up 20 years ago. This cosmic anomaly, in which everything and everyone on this single block vanished behind a seemingly uncrossable veil, left behind only three college girls—Talitha, Brett Hadley, and Grace Spencer. In a world obsessed with spectacle, it’s no surprise that the mysterious circumstances of the Velkwood Vicinity caught the attention of occult theorists, some ill-intentioned tabloid journalists, and now a sympathetic paranormal researcher named Jack. He theorizes that only the three women are capable of crossing the border, and when both Brett and Grace reject his offer to try it, he approaches Talitha, convincing her to go back for her younger sister. What she finds is a street full of ghosts ready to plunge her back into the traumatic past she tried desperately to run from. Somewhere between real life and the supernatural, Talitha must confront the reality that past and present are always intertwined, no matter how hard you work to erase it. After all her years of running, Talitha turns back for another moment with her sister and a reconnection with her estranged friends to repair the Velkwood Vicinity and heal themselves. While the haunting is original and atmospheric, the dark history of Talitha’s suburbia has a predictable underbelly, leaving the scares a bit hollow and the emotional peak at a disappointingly low elevation. On the other hand, a character-driven novel that employs a metaphor for the time warp of trauma and women refusing to stay silent about abuses they’ve undergone is a worthwhile undertaking.

Kiste fights for friendship and love to pull her characters through.