Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney

This book was a reread for me.  I read the first five books in this series when they first came out and I remember being absolutely riveted.  I wasn't wrong!  This book sucked me in and kept me there, sufficiently scared but also needing to know what was going to happen.

Tom is the seventh son of a seventh son and when he turns thirteen he is apprenticed to the spook.  A spook's job is to protect the county from the dark, from ghasts and boggarts and witches.  Tom is not necessarily excited about his future job.  He knows that the spook's life is lonely and dangerous but his mother, who seems to have the gift of sight, tells him that he is meant for this life.  Tom resolves to make the best of it.

However, he quickly gets himself involved with a girl who wears pointy shoes, something the spook has warned him against.  Now there are missing children in the village and a witch on the loose and the spook just happens to be out of town.  Can Tom handle it himself with just a couple of weeks worth of training?  What about when an angry witch gets too close to his family?

This book was exciting and scary.  However, it's definitely not for the faint of heart!

-RYQ

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl, by Paige McKenzie w/ Alyssa B. Sheinmel

Based on the YouTube series...

Shortly after her 16th birthday, Sunshine's mother moves them to Ridgemount, Washington (not D.C.). Almost immediately, Sunshine feels it: A creepy, almost menacing watchfulness and a damp cold she can't shake no matter how many sweaters and scarves she layers. This feeling has nothing to do with the dreary, foggy weather. And within the first 24 hours in her new home, Sunshine has her first encounter with a paranormal being.

But this is not a story filled with sparklerific vegetarian vampires or uber-buff werewolf boys. No way! Based on the YouTube show of the same name, The Haunting of Sunshine Girl is a good, old-fashioned ghost story, packed with plenty of spine-tingling moments and edge-of-your-seat suspense. And, on a refreshing note, there are absolutely NO love triangles. Or any romance at all.

Sunshine soon discovers her new home is inhabited by not one ghost, but two: There's the little girl in the soggy dress who cries in the night and seems desperate to communicate something important to Sunshine. Then there's the dark spirit who latches onto Sunshine's adopted mother, Katherine. These ghosts are connected, but how?

With the help of a local boy with an interest in the paranormal and a creepy teacher who seems to follow her everywhere, Sunshine learns she is no ordinary girl. She is a rare type of spirit guide who's mission is to help the spirits of the recently deceased move on. She also has the ability to vanquish demons like the one possessing Katherine.

On top of dealing with the hauntings, this is almost too much for Sunshine to take in, much less believe. But she must embrace her newfound powers if she's going to save Katherine's life. And she must do it SOON, because time is running out.

Regardless of if you're a fan of the YouTube show, The Haunting of Sunshine Girl is a worthwhile read and a great recommendation for those looking for a paranormal story sans romance. Debut author Paige McKenzie, who is also the star of the YouTube show, does a stellar job bringing characters and setting to life on the page. A cliffhanger ending will leave readers eager for the next installment.

The Final Verdict: A great ghost story that reminded me of the suspense/mystery books I loved as a teen back in the 90s. I devoured the whole thing in two sittings and wanted more at the end. My only complaints, and these are minor to be sure, were constant mentions of Sunshine's frizzy hair (overdone, I thought) and references to Jane Austen that seemed to add nothing to the story. Overall, though. An awesome first novel by a teen author. I'll expect great things from the next two books in this planned trilogy. --AJB

Cold In Summer, by Tracy Barrett

A lost little girl....

A town that's been drowned beneath a lake....

A hundred-year-old mystery....

Fresh from our New Tween Collection comes Cold In Summer, by Tracy Barrett, a fantastic mystery/ghost-story that is so good you'll be reading it under the blankets with a flashlight long after you've gone to bed!

Ariadne's family has just moved from their sunny Florida neighborhood to a small, rural community in Tennessee. Ariadne's family seems to be adapting just fine, but Ariadne, 12, feels very lonely. She misses her best friend, Sarah, and everything about "home." There's nothing in this new place for her.

Then Ariadne encounters May Butler in the woods near the local lake. Despite May's old-fashioned clothes, cryptic way of speaking in riddles, and odd habit of seeming to vanish at a moment's notice, there's something about May that makes Ariadne think this girl could become a friend. 

But not everything is as it seems.

There's a local legend about a young girl who vanished mysteriously just before the local dam was built a hundred years earlier, flooding the valley and drowning the town that once existed there. This missing girl's name was also May Butler. Could Ariadne's new friend be distantly related to the missing girl?

Or is the May Butler of the past and the May Butler of the present the same person?

This is a mystery only Ariadne can solve.

Pay no attention to the drab cover (Rule: Don't Judge!). Cold In Summer is a fantastic middle-grade story! Readers will be drawn in immediately and enjoy piecing together the clues to solve the mystery as it unfolds. Check it out today!

p.s. If you liked Cold In Summer, try Wait Till Helen Comes, by Mary Downing Hahn. --AJB

The Graveyard Book #2 (graphic novel adaption), by Neil Gaiman

Previously, when I reviewed the first installment of the graphic novel adaption of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, I bemoaned the fact the graphic format had taken an awesome stand-alone book and split it into two parts. As of late, Hollywood has made this into a nasty trend with book-to-movie adaptions and, well, let's just say I'm not a fan of that concept. I hate waiting. Especially when there's a cliffhanger involved.

Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long before The Graveyard Book vol. 2 was in my hands. When book one ended, Bod, the boy raised by graveyard ghosts, made a few ill-fated attempts to venture out into the world. He met a witch--or at least the ghost of one. He visited the ghoul city of Ghulheim and was rescued by a legendary Hound of God. And, of course, The Man Jack begin to plot how to find (and dispose of) the child who escaped him years earlier.

Book 2 picks up where Book 1 left off. Here, we find Bod older, but not necessarily wiser, about the world outside the Graveyard he calls home. Still, Bod's previous adventures have made him curious. He wants to attend school and make friends his own age--friends who are not ghosts. Unfortunately this opens the door to more trouble...and that trouble leads Bod into the worst sort of danger. Yes, he has his friends and family to help, but ghosts can only do so much when one is faced with mortal danger. Can Bod figure out how to outsmart The Man Jack when the two come face to face? Will he ever get out of the graveyard? And, more importantly, will he want to? Read the book to find out. 

As with vol. 1, each chapter in The Graveyard Book vol. 2 is illustrated by a different artist. This time, however (with the exception of the first chapter), the artistic styles are more similar, so this second installment doesn't feel as disjointed as the first. 

Together, these two books pay spectacular homage to Gaiman's original story. The dialogue stays true to the original story, and the illustrations are beautiful, colorful, and detailed. These two books are definitely worth checking out! 

--AJB

Mary: The Summoning, by Hillary Monahan

First-time author Hillary Monahan's Mary: The Summoning explores the famous urban legend of Mary Worth, a.k.a. "Bloody Mary." Paranormal fiction of recent years has turned nightmare creatures like vampires, werewolves, and spirits (oh my!) into glittery, romantic figures meant to make readers swoon rather than scream in terror. Not this book, though. Mary: The Summoning is straight-up horror, reminiscent of the Fear Streetesque stuff I used to scare myself silly reading when I was a teen in the 1990s. 

There is a right way and a wrong way to summon the vengeful ghost of Bloody Mary. And Jess, Shauna, Anna, and Kitty do it all wrong. Jess, as it turns out, secretly wants to do more than just see Mary. She wants to speak with her. There's much more to this story, but no spoilers.

Unfortunately, this lapse of judgement releases Mary (and all of her rage) from her mirrored prison. Once out, Mary attaches herself to the girls, particularly Shauna. Now Mary is popping up in all sorts of shiny surfaces and terrorizing the teens at every turn. No place is safe from Mary's wrath. As the girls search for a way to put Mary back behind the mirror where she belongs, they unravel the horrifyingly tragic story of Mary Worth, a young woman from the 1800's who died under horrible circumstances. There is blood, there is horror, there is death... 

And there is a cliffhanger.

Yep, In true Horror Story fashion, Mary: The Summoning is apparently only the first in a series of books involving Bloody Mary. But don't all worthy horror story villains deserve a sequel or two? (Freddy, Jason, Chucky... even that creepy kid from The Ring got a second shot to scare audiences)

Hopefully the rest will be as horrifyingly good as this one. --AJB

FEATURED BOOK: Whispers from the Dead, by Joan Lowery Nixon

Today's featured book, Whispers From The Dead, by Joan Lowery Nixon, can be found on the Island of Misfit Books display.

Sarah isn't the same after her near-death experience. There seems to be a shadowy presence trailing her every step. And when her family moves into a new home, the truly creepy stuff starts: Screams and pleas for help only Sarah can hear, nightmares, grisly ghostly sightings of a young woman being dragged across the floor by a man carrying a knife... This sort of thing would send the average teen straight to a padded cell in the local asylum, but not Sarah. Instead, she investigates...and helps crack an the disappearance and unsolved murder of Rosa, a young immigrant girl who had been working at the house before she and her family moved in. Whodunit? You'll have to read the book to find out.

Originally published in the early 1990s, Whispers From The Dead is, if anything, a bit dated. For example, Sarah doesn't just open her laptop and jump on the internet to look for clues to Rosa's murder. There are no smart phones or MP3 players. And any pop culture references would likely be unrecognizable to teens of today. That said, today's teens might find it difficult to relate to Sarah. 

Aside from that, Whispers From The Dead is a solid murder mystery with a strong female lead. There's a bit of light romance, but for the most part situations remain pretty innocent and appropriate for younger teen readers. 

And the big reveal will give you chills. --AJB

Peeled

And they would have gotten away with it too...
 

Hildy Biddle is a high schooler with a nose for news and a desire to make the truth known. Someday she hopes to be a famous journalist, but for now she must be content with writing for her school's paper, The Core, where the most exciting thing to report on is the year's Apple Blossom Queen suffering a bout of nasty food poisoning just before she is crowned. It's not that Hildy isn't looking for stories. It's just that nothing interesting ever happens in the tiny town of Banesville. 

That is, until the town paper starts printing some pretty sensational stories about a local house that's supposedly haunted. Soon the whole town is in an uproar. But Hildy doesn't believe any of the stories about ghosts. There's got to be more to this story, and Hildy vows to get to the bottom of it! And if she does, she just might find that big story break she's been waiting her entire life for.

Peeled, by Joan Bauer, is a fun and fast-paced mystery. You won't be able to put it down! --AJB

Wait Till Helen Comes: A Ghost Story

Don't let the (short) length of Wait Till Helen Comes, by Mary Downing Hahn, fool you. There's enough creepiness packed into this slim volume to keep you reading long into the night--and jumping at every strange sound you hear as your house settles (pssst: don't turn off the light. Helen's coming to get you!).

The horror begins almost immediately when step-sisters Heather and Molly discover a creepy old graveyard in the woods behind their new home. At the weed-choked edge of this graveyard, the girls find a forgotten, moss-covered  gravestone carved only with a set of initials and a date of death. This stone becomes an obsession for the girls, particularly for scardy-cat Molly, who is, perhaps, overly disturbed by its isolated location and its mysterious inscription. Her uneasiness soon transforms into terror when Heather begins visiting the stone, claiming she's met and befriended Helen, the spirit of the young girl buried beneath it. But Helen's no friendly ghost. She's an angry and vengeful spirit who, Molly learns, may very well be responsible for leading several children to their deaths in a nearby pond. And it's looking like Heather might be the next victim. Can Molly convince her step-sister of Helen's deadly agenda before it's too late?

Wait Till Helen Comes is one of our 2014 Oxford Middle School Battle of the Books selections. I first encountered it when I was in middle school, and found it seriously creepy back then! When I re-read it for the Battle, it was still just as creepy as I remembered! So if you're looking for something scary, something other than love triangles and Hunger Games wannabes, or just something you won't be able to put down, look no further than Wait Till Helen Comes! --AJB

Unsolved Mystery or Man-Made Hoax?

From Alien Abductions to the truth about Zombies, this fun little browsable book has it all! Dead Strange, located on our New Book Shelf, contains the latest up-to-date information about 50 of the world's most popular urban legends. Is Sasquatch a native creature or a visitor form another galaxy? Can the practice of Dowsing really be used to find water, oil, and lost valuables? Is there really a Loch Ness Monster? Men in Black--fact or Hollywood fiction? Check out the book and decide for yourself. You may not find all the answers you seek (after all, this book isn't endorsed by the Mythbusters), but it's a lot of fun to read just the same!

The Graveyard Book

One dark, foggy night, a mysterious man carrying a knife sneaks into a house while the family sleeps. The only survivor is the baby--who gets away only by chance. The child, then a nameless boy, crawls up a nearby hill and through the gate of an old graveyard. The ghosts residing here rescue the child from certain death, name him Nobody ("Bod" for short), and raise him as their own. Bod has many adventures growing up among the ghosts and tombstones. The only condition is Bod must not leave the graveyard, for surely the man who disposed of his family is still hunting him down, hoping to finish the job. And this is true. But, sooner or later, Bod must face this terrifying past if he is to have a future.

Neil Gaiman proves once again he is a master storyteller with The Graveyard Book. Recently chosen as one of our 6th Grade Battle of the Books books, this combines fantasy, mystery, suspense, and humor. Quirky black and white illustrations enhance an already excellent story. This one's definitely worth checking out. You'll be glad you did! --AJB

Amber House

Sometimes the past stays buried. And sometimes it comes back to haunt you--quite literally! Although Sarah had heard about Amber House, the sprawling gothic mansion where her mother grew up, she never visited until after her grandmother's death. She is soon drawn into a generations-long mystery involving ghosts, terrifying visions, and a hidden treasure. Can Sarah get to the bottom of the mystery of Amber House before it's too late?

This shivery mystery/ghost story (complete with a touch of romance) is a definite page turner! The first in a planned trilogy, this is perfect reading for when you want to stay in on the upcoming cold winter nights! --AJB

A Ghost Story

Diana and her little brother Georgie live near the creepy (and possibly haunted) Old Willis Place and follow a strict set of rules they must obey no matter what: They're not allowed inside the old house, they must not leave the grounds, they're not allowed to speak to anyone who might visit (not that anyone would), and they must never, ever disturb mean old Miss. Willis. Then a new groundskeeper and his teenage daughter arrive on the scene, and Diana sees the chance to have something she hasn't had in a long time: A friend. She'd break the rules for that. But things aren't as easy as they would seem. Why? Read and find out. There's a twist. --AJB

Love Can Be Scary

Jackson is dead, and Ava can't let go of him. When she's asleep, he's all she dreams of. But soon he intrudes her waking life as well: She catching glimpses of him in the corner of her eye and could swear she hears him talking to her inside her head. The reader soon learns the accident that caused Jackson's demise was Ava's fault--or, at least, she thinks it's her fault. So is Jackson's ghost really back to torment Ava? Or is it just a manifestation of the guilt she feels? Either way, Ava must find a way to free herself and move on.

Although the cover image makes I Heart You, You Haunt Me appear to be a fluffy paranormal romance, this is not actually the case. This novel, written entirely in free verse, is the dark story of a teen attempting to cope with the death someone close to her. Kind of creepy, though, and definitely seasonally appropriate. --AJB

What if...?

Camden Pike has been devastated since his girlfriend, Viv, died in a car accident two months ago.  She was the only good thing about his life.  When Camden makes a visit to the site of the accident he sees something like an apparition, but it's not Viv.  The apparition is Nina and she's not a ghost.  She is actually from an alternate universe.  One he can access by slipping through a window.  One where things seem the same as this world, but everyone is actually very different.  Cam just wants to see Viv again.  But Viv in the alternate universe is not like the Viv Cam remembers from his world.  Nina is hiding some secrets as well.  Not only that but the window allowing him to go back and forth from one world to another is quickly closing.  Cam has to decide to stay with the different Viv in the alternate universe or live without her in his own. 

Emily Hainsworth's debut novel, Through to You, is very enjoyable.  It has just the right amount of romance, mystery and intrigue to keep you hooked until the end. - KR