PORTRAITS OF CELINA

What happens when the ghosts that haunt us want revenge?

After the accidental death of her father, Bayley and her family move to a new town in the Australian countryside, to the lakeside house her family owns. Bayley's grief over her father's death, however, seems less important than a 40-year-old family mystery: the disappearance of Celina O'Malley. Her mother's cousin, 16-year-old Celina vanished on her way to school. At first, Bayley, who’s also 16, just dresses in Celina's old clothes and asks one of Celina's old friends to tell her about her missing relative. But soon, a ghostly Celina is pressing Bayley for more—to make her killer pay. It scares Bayley, and it affects her relationship with Oliver, the cute boy who lives on the other side of the lake—especially when Celina reveals that her killer has a connection to Oliver. Will Bayley be able to help Celina rest, or will Celina's quest for vengeance subsume her? The failure to better connect the deaths of Bayley's father and Celina is a missed opportunity for this novel. Lacking this thematic resonance, the ghost story is fairly standard, as are the characters and other plot elements.

Perfectly serviceable but nothing special.