Dead Voices (Katherine Arden)

Dead Voices
The Small Spaces quartet, Book 1
Katherine Arden
G. P. Putnam's Sons
Fiction, MG Horror
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Coco used to be the new girl at school who many people didn't much like, too bubbly and clumsy and with pink hair to boot. That was before the incident on the school trip to the farm, where she and two classmates, Ollie and Brian, found themselves pulled into the world beyond the mists, a world of malevolent living scarecrows and mournful ghosts and a dark entity known as the Smiling Man, who offers wishes and plays games with terrible strings attached. Since surviving that, the three kids have been best friends. Now, they're on their way to a week at a new ski resort in the Vermont mountains, Hemlock Lodge, along with Ollie's widower father and Coco's single mother (who seems to be spending a lot of time with Ollie's dad lately). They're all looking forward to a vacation... but even before they get there, in the heart of a snowstorm, there are signs of trouble ahead. A phantom figure appears in the road, as though to bar the way. Nightmares warn about the "dead voices". And when they get to Hemlock Lodge, they find the power has failed and no other guests have been able to brave the roads. Then the stranger shows up and tells them of the lodge's haunted past, and the ghosts who may still be stalking the halls. Like it or not, Coco and her friends are about to experience another close encounter with the supernatural... only, this time, they may not escape with their lives.

REVIEW: I enjoyed Small Spaces, and had no idea Arden had extended the series into a quartet. While the first book focused mainly on Ollie as she came to terms with her mother's loss, this one shifts focus to small (and often underestimated) Coco. She likes her friends, and they like her, but sometimes she still feels out of place among them; they like books she doesn't like, and games she doesn't play, and sometimes it seems she doesn't belong with them much at all, despite their shared secrets. While Ollie still has a major role to play and more issues to work out, this time about her father possibly being ready to move on from her mother (who still seems to maintain a presence in Ollie's life through her peculiar watch), it's Coco's turn to step up and face the challenges of the phantom threat, one that may have a very familiar face underneath it all. As before, the adults are pretty much sidelined while the kids are left to deal with the (no real spoiler, as it's a horror title) all-too-real malevolent spirits of Hemlock Lodge. Also as before, there's plenty of creepy imagery and scary moments and a few nice twists along the way. I enjoyed it, and hope to get to the rest of the quartet soon.

You Might Also Enjoy:
Small Spaces (Katherine Arden) - My Review
The Ghost in the Third Row (Bruce Coville) - My Review
The Shadows (Jacqueline West) - My Review