Arden ( The Bear and the Nightingale) shrouds her Halloween-time story in autumnal mists, introducing a sometimes-crowded cast of ominous figures, from ghosts to shapeshifters and scarecrow minions. keep to small.” In its pages, Ollie reads of a long-ago family whose losses led them to make a dreadful pact with a demonic figure known as “the smiling man.” And on a class trip to a dairy farm, Ollie and two classmates-with whom she forms a reluctant connection-learn that the smiling man is very real. When Ollie, drawn to the book, takes it, the woman warns Ollie to “avoid large places at night. Her circumstances take a supernatural turn when she encounters a frightening woman attempting to throw a book into the river.
Keep to small.” And with that, a deliciously creepy and hair-raising adventure begins.Eleven-year-old Ollie lives with her big-hearted baking enthusiast father following the tragic death of her mother, and finds respite from her grief through reading. As the trio head out into the woods–bordered by a field of scarecrows that seem to be watching them–the bus driver has just one final piece of advice for Ollie and her friends: “Avoid large places. Only Ollie and two of her classmates heed these warnings. At nightfall they’ll come for the rest of you.” Nightfall is, indeed, fast descending when Ollie’s previously broken digital wristwatch begins a startling countdown and delivers a terrifying message: RUN. Then, later, when her school bus breaks down on the ride home, the strange bus driver tells Ollie and her classmates: “Best get moving. Captivated by the tale, Ollie begins to wonder if the smiling man might be real when she stumbles upon the graves of the very people she’s been reading about on a school trip to a nearby farm.
After suffering a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie who only finds solace in books discovers a chilling ghost story about a girl named Beth, the two brothers who loved her, and a peculiar deal made with “the smiling man”–a sinister specter who grants your most tightly held wish, but only for the ultimate price. New York Times bestselling adult author of The Bear and the Nightingale makes her middle grade debut with a creepy, spellbinding ghost story destined to become a classic.
0 kommentar(er)
