THE PRESENCE

Emotional depth resonates as 17-year-old Catherine fights off two kinds of haunting. Wracked with guilt and nightmares over a car accident that killed her best friend, Catherine goes to visit her warm and sparkly grandmother in Pasadena for a change of scene; however, in her grandmother’s church, she’s confronted by a dazzling, eerie man who’s a ghost from the 19th century. Half the narration is in his disturbed, stalker-like voice, so readers know his horrifying murderous history long before Catherine does, but suspense remains about the outcome. Bunting’s tight and compelling writing gives relentless emotional pain (a form of haunting indeed) as much play as physical danger. New friend/romance Collin, the minister’s son, provides Catherine with fleeting bits of joy and a feeling of solidity from his realness. She is not free of burden by the end, but there is hope. Memorable. (Fiction. 12+)