It’s Watching

Three 12-year-olds find themselves in the center of a chilling mystery in this unsettling page-turner by Currie (The Mystery of Locked Rooms). To secure a position on next year’s school paper staff, budding journalist Josie enlists best friends Alison and Jackson, who is grieving a relative’s recent death, for a clandestine excursion: on Halloween night, the trio sneak into Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery to research the mythical Lady in White, an apparition purportedly photographed at the site decades ago. Startled by police, the group—joined by a charming yet disheveled boy also grieving the death of a close relative—flee the graveyard without paranormal evidence. They later receive horrifying texts stating, “I’m watching,” suggesting that “something evil” has returned with them from their trespass. The group’s warmly funny dynamic adds welcome buoyancy to the story as the preteens are harassed by a terrifying poltergeist. A phantom farmhouse, menacing fake news reports, and an ominous countdown accompany clues that propel the tweens into a frantic supernatural investigation that seems to reach back generations. It’s an eerie mystery boasting horror-movie scares with an assuring tale of friendship at its center. Main characters cue as white. Ages 8–12. Agent: Shannon Hassan, Marsal Lyon Literary. (Feb.)