Conjuring Summer in

Bernadette, 14, plunges into the world of the occult and tarot cards, looking for difficult answers to her adolescent problems. She'd rather be back in Ohio, where the world with her stepfather, mother and stepbrother Keith was a safe one; instead, they're in southern California, her stepfather is dead, her mother is dating another man and Keith, once Bernadette's close ally, is aloof. So Bernadette summons up demons and asks them to take the family back home. When two girls are murdered, Bernadette is frightened, but it's only when a psychic, Giselle Fox, is killed that the young girl wonders if her conjuring is somehow linked to the murders. The story is told through Bernadette's first-person and Keith's third-person accountswhich works most of the time. The narrative contains an abundance of mystical and psychological terms (Keith spouts a lot of Freudian cliches), but the exciting ending justifies many of the murkier aspects of the telling. (12-up)