In an effort to put her family back together, a teen struggles to discover what happened to her mother who disappeared during a ghost hunt in this haunting novel from the author of Party, Sick, and Shackled.
Five years ago, Abby Booth’s mom, cohost of a ghost-hunting reality show, went missing while filming in a “haunted” cave in Arizona.
Since then, Abby’s life has all but fallen to pieces, most notably because of her dad’s deep depression and how they’ve drifted further and further apart.
But now, at sixteen, Abby has decided that things will change. She plans to go to the same cave where her mom and the crew went missing and to find out, once and for all, what happened there.
With the help of the cohost’s son Charlie, and two of his friends, Abby sets off on a quest for answers…but when the group ends up finding, what they stumble across in that dark, primordial cave in Arizona, is nothing they could have ever imaged.
Abby was investigating a possible haunting…she never expected that there could be something worse.Five years ago, the cast and crew of the paranormal reality show Spectre Spectrum disappeared inside a “haunted” cave. Abby, whose scientist mother was a cohost, can’t accept the lack of answers (and bodies); raised as a skeptic and atheist, Abby wants a rational explanation. Plus, if she can find one, maybe she can pull her father out of his depression. Abby plans a caving expedition to search for the truth with Charlie, the other costar’s son; Alex, the executive producer’s son; and Shelby, Charlie’s girlfriend. Leveen alternates between two time lines, before and after the monsters are freed; this structure adds mystery, but the transitions between teen drama, postapocalyptic survival, and B-movie silliness can be jarring. The characters hold interesting debates on science and religion, belief and skepticism, but only Abby’s personal story has emotional depth, and the end of the world feels curiously detached. Ultimately, this is a story speculating that Noah’s Ark was a fifth-dimensional prison for hellish creatures: entertaining, suspenseful, and sometimes ridiculous. — Krista Hutley
