THE TRUTH AGAINST THE WORLD

Two teens thousands of miles apart discover they’re haunted by the same desperate ghost.

On a family visit to a Welsh seaside village, Londoner Gareth discovers the lonely, dead child when his cellphone falls into an ancient burial chamber; she returns it to him only after securing his promise to visit her. In California, Olwen’s great-grandmother, Gee Gee, expresses her dying wish to return to that same Welsh village, her hometown. Olwen—known as Wyn—senses that the beloved Gee Gee she thought she knew is a façade hiding a mystery, one tied to her own haunting. After Gareth finds Wyn’s blog, the teens meet online and realize that each has been contacted by a ghostly girl whose name Wyn bears and whose urgent need is draining them. Her voice and image turn up on Gareth’s phone; Wyn’s dreams are more complex, interwoven with Gee Gee, the child and a strange young man. When Wyn’s family brings Gee Gee to her village and Gareth arranges a visit to his great-grandfather there, the teens meet and—exhausted and disoriented by their intensifying visitations—struggle to solve the riddle and free themselves before Gee Gee’s life ends. Though a reluctance to put characters in harm’s way combines with excessive foreshadowing to rob the plot of suspense, there’s an old-fashioned charm to this gently meandering tale that can’t be denied.

A fresh-air alternative to claustrophobic dystopias.