Beyond

Seventeen-year-old Jane has always sensed her ghostly part, a shadow making her do bad things to herself; more than once she's "danced with death, wrestled with the Reaper. And won." Jane and best friend Lexi are the Creep Sisters, living a dark fairy tale. With this story of ghosts, evil, murder, and redemption, McNamee proves himself a master of well-plotted chilling tales.

A deft fusion of ghost story and murder mystery, Beyond is an immersive, eerie tale. Having escaped death several times throughout her life, Jane has a charmingly wry attitude regarding her most recent near-death experience. But her fear of the vindictive spirit from “Beyond”—and of the possibility that it isn’t real and she’s losing her mind—is palpable. As she investigates potential reasons for the spirit’s murderous intentions, she uncovers a horrifying backstory with multiple startling revelations. Graham McNamee has a gift for atmospheric detail and language. The story is set in a small town on the “Rain Coast” of Canada, where, Jane says, “the sky is always crowded with clouds and the rainy season never seems to end. Makes you feel color-blind sometimes, starving your eyes.” For years, Jane and her best friend, Lexi, have been known at school as the “Creep Sisters” (Jane says of Lexi, “Always in black, she looks like the Grim Reaper’s hot little sister.”). Their teasing, trusting relationship adds warmth to this spooky story. The climactic sequence, in which Jane finally confronts the spirit (and another, darker figure), is transfixing, unsettling, and, in the end, highly gratifying.

“Why did I do it? Who knows?” wonders seventeen-year-old Jane, who has survived poisoning, electrocution, almost being run down by a train, and now a nail in her brain. Everyone thinks she has a death wish, but that isn’t it: she has always sensed a ghostly part of herself, a shadow that turns on her, making her do bad things to herself. More than once she has “danced with death, wrestled with the Reaper. And won.” Since her recent accident with the nail gun, she sleepwalks, prompting rumors among her classmates that she runs “the streets naked after midnight, howling at the moon, feasting on human flesh.” Jane is stuck in a nightmare, with an evil body double akin to Dr. Jekyll’s, but “how do you break up with a nightmare?” Luckily, she has her best friend Lexi, always dressed in black, looking like “the Grim Reaper’s hot little sister.” Together, they’re the Creep Sisters, living a dark fairy tale weirder than anything dreamt up by the Brothers Grimm. McNamee places this spooky mystery on Canada’s rainy west coast, a misty setting perfect for an eerie tale of ghosts, evil, murder, and redemption. With this and his recent Acceleration and Bonechiller, McNamee proves himself a master of well-plotted chilling tales teens want to read. dean schneider