This spunky heroine sees dead people, to readers’ delight.
A debut YA novel features the message that ghosts have problems too.
In this series opener, McCord introduces a feisty protagonist. Pekin Dewlap, 15, is starting her own ghost-hunting business and plans to draft her best friends, Amber and Scout, for this venture. She has chosen to clean up haunted houses because, up until middle school, she was able to communicate with spirits. As she explains to her mother, Melissa, who used to have that same ability, “I want to be special again.” Pekin already has a client, Elonia Collins, who says the property she inherited at 12 Elmwood is haunted. Elonia suspects the apparition is Miranda Talbert, who was 14 when she disappeared in the house in 1918. Pekin, accompanied by her two reluctant friends, encounters Miranda on her first visit to Elmwood Manor. After Miranda gets comfortable with the trio, she admits she was murdered. During the attack, Miranda bit off and swallowed one of the killer’s fingers, keeping him from crossing over when he died. Since then, the culprit, imprisoned at Elmwood Manor, has been tormenting Miranda. So the three friends, aided by local psychic Mildred “Mildew” Willingham, must determine how to banish the killer and help Miranda find peace. In this novel, McCord certainly knows how to reach her target audience. Pekin is dealing with emotional changes in her life, including a growing attraction to Scout. In her thoughts, Pekin debates whether he really likes her. Amber is even more boy crazy while Scout is sometimes a typical, monosyllabic male teen when expressing his feelings. But, while acknowledging the teens’ daily struggles, this volume is primarily about solving the mystery. Pekin and company get away with pluck and ingenuity for a time, finally gathering enough knowledge to put them in danger. When the three friends inevitably get in over their heads, they wisely seek help from the adults in their lives, especially Mildew. What results is a winning, lighthearted paranormal tale for all ages.
This spunky heroine sees dead people, to readers’ delight.Pub Date: March 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-947392-46-5
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
