Behold the Bones

Gr 8 Up—Readers return to Sticks, LA, in this companion novel to 2014's Beware the Wild (HarperCollins). Seventeen-year-old Candy Pickens has an unusual relationship to the equally unusual swamp and the magic, or Shine, that dwells within it. Her family has always been a little odd. For generations, there always comes a time when a child is born at the moment an older relative dies. Candy is the most recent family member to share her birthday with a death date, and her family celebrates this "honor" with a graveyard ceremony each year. If that isn't odd enough, Candy is one of the few people in town who can't see the ghosts that are everywhere, and she has the unique ability to repel the Shine. Like many teens, Candy wants to be seen as normal, so she and her best friends, Sterling and Abby, enter the swamp in an effort for Candy to gain the ability to see as others do. The teen gets more than she bargained for when she discovers that not only can she see ghosts but she seems to be able to make them disappear as well. Unfortunately, her new gift is captured by television cameras and garners the attention of a famous ghost hunter and his family. Suddenly, Candy is in high demand. Less atmospheric and more rushed than Beware the Wild, this novel is at its strongest when conjuring ghostly images and madness. The television story line is less successful, often breaking the tension the author has worked to create, rather than adding to it.