The Accident Season

It’s the last week of the “accident season”—the superstitious way Cara’s family marks October—and the 17-year-old is trying to avoid disaster. That’s difficult when she is simultaneously unraveling a strange discovery that involves her family’s photos and trying to be a regular teenager, including grappling with confusing romantic feelings for Sam, her ex-stepbrother. Debut author Fowley-Doyle weaves an enchanting ghost story set in a small Irish river town, where magical elements collide with brutal realities. Elsie, the classmate who can be seen in Cara’s family pictures, is the harbinger of the unveiling of secrets, putting a commonsensical twist on what Cara’s mother has chalked up to the family’s terrible luck. Like a phantom guide, Elsie shows up in shop windows and old newspaper clippings, leaving a trail of clues that sends Cara and her siblings to a decrepit haunted house on the edge of town. The answers lead to a fairly predictable plot twist, but the endearing coming-of-age narrative about emotionally scarred young adults trying to find their tribe more than compensates. Ages 14–up. (Aug.)