A spooky tale of family trauma.
Haunted families find peace.
Seventeen-year-old Joana Guest is used to feeling like an outsider. Her itinerant father, Jack, moves her and her 13-year-old brother, Peter, around the cities and towns of Vermont, staying in each place for just a short time before they pick up and go again. Jack is plagued by what he calls the Whisperings—voices that only he can hear and that seem to threaten his family. Lured by the prospect of steady handyman work for Jack, the small family moves into the basement of a decrepit Victorian mansion in Burlington that’s owned by the slightly batty Mrs. Cracknell. But they soon learn that the house is as infested with ghosts as their own lives are. Joana begins seeing things, including the spirit of her late mother, who was murdered, and after she suffers a head injury, her father’s ability to see and hear the Whisperings transfers to her. The “ta-tump” of Joana’s heartbeat, mimicked by the tapping of the deathwatch beetles living in the walls of the Guests’ new home, is a recurring motif. The family has to unravel the mystery of the house’s violent past, as well as resolve the unfinished business from their own tragedy. The story is marked by an eerie sense of unreality, as hallucinations and dreams interweave with very real danger, and the on-page gore outweighs more emotionally wrought scares. Most characters are cued white.
A spooky tale of family trauma. (author’s note) (Horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9781774881019
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Chilling yet romantic; explores the complexities of death, love, and grief.
A teenage mortician’s assistant discovers that the dead don’t always stay that way.
Seventeen-year-old Meka is no stranger to death, having grown up working in her parents’ Ithaca, New York, funeral home. Though the morbidity of her job unsettles some of her friends, Meka is passionate about her family’s business, and she has the full support of her boyfriend, Noah. But despite her comfort with death, she’s haunted by a recurring nightmare about her mother dying—a dream she desperately hopes won’t come true. When Meka’s life is rocked by a completely unexpected tragedy, strange things begin happening: She sees shadowy figures lurking, a mysterious gift arrives on her doorstep, and fragments of a buried memory resurface. As Meka slowly pieces together the truth, what she finds forces her to question everything she knows about life and death—and her own family. Bayron crafts a page-turning, atmospheric homage to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, balancing unnerving horror with tender romance. Teens familiar with the original novel will enjoy the modern twist, and the layered mystery will also appeal to reluctant readers and those without prior knowledge of Shelley’s work. The foreboding narrative starts out at a slower pace and builds to an action-packed conclusion, though readers may be left with some unanswered questions. Meka and her family are cued as Black.
Chilling yet romantic; explores the complexities of death, love, and grief. (Horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781547615865
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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