Spooking is the wonderfully weird, ramshackle town at the top of the hideous hill. Its rival, Darlington, is the modern, all-too-perfect city at the bottom of the hill. When the mayor of Darlington announces a water park will be opened in Spooking, Joy Wells is determined to save her beloved town from becoming just as boring and plastic as Darlington. But someone is out to stop her, no matter what it takes…

Review: This is a story that begins in the cemetery, where “endless headstones(…)lie broken against their gray neighbors – trapped in a prison of old sorrows guarded by stone walls and iron spikes.” From the start, the gothic oozes from every page of this story, but this is balanced a sharp, dry narrative wit that closely observes the characters who people this world. It’s a sense of humour that both adults and children will enjoy.

Quirky characters include Madame Portia, who lives in the swamp in a submarine on stilts and who takes a sneaky peak at palms to read the future, Morris Mealey the precocious boy designer of the water park and the bitter, disillusioned Mr Phipps, whose mission is to ensure the water park is built, even if going under cover means being a jester at a children’s party (he hates children). Joy’s younger brother, Byron, is dragged over the graveyard at night and into the swamp by Joy, in her mission to prevent the water park being built. The relationship between sister and brother is both realistic and touching.

The story has pace and it’s a great adventure: it really delivers. The first of a trilogy from a new, Canadian writer, the novel is satisfying in itself, but leaves the reader eager to visit Spooking again.

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2008-08-19