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Reviewed by:
  • The Bargaining by Carly Anne West
  • Kate Quealy-Gainer
West, Carly Anne The Bargaining. Simon Pulse, 2015 [416p] ISBN 978-1-4424-4182-8 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys     R Gr. 8-12

Penny’s latest foray into juvenile delinquency (punching the daylights out of a girl in the high school bathroom) lands her a summer stay with her stepmother, a woman with a penchant for rehab projects. The two are going to fix up an old [End Page 334] house in the North Woods of Washington, but when they arrive they realize that the decrepit mansion’s faulty wiring and touchy plumbing are the least of their worries. A creepy mural in one of the bedrooms, mysterious nocturnal noises, and the appearance of ghostly children outside her window rightly set Penny on edge, but the locals are reticent, if not downright hostile, when asked about the house’s history. It’s then left up to Penny—who’s got some demons of her own to deal with—to figure out what’s going on before she and her stepmom meet the same fate as the ghosts. These are familiar tropes, but West massages them with gleeful finesse, adding disturbingly vivid images of the twisted, mutated bodies of the child spirits that will thrill an audience raised on The Ring, The Grudge, etc. The story behind the haunting is equally as chilling, reminiscent of Westall’s The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral (BCCB 4/93), and it’s a terrifying reflection on both the depths and limits of parental love. Readers should be prepared to sleep with the light on after finishing this one.

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