Tombstone Tea

September 21, 2009
Dahme (Creepers
) brings a cemetery to life in this quiet and gently eerie communion with ghosts. After moving to Philadelphia, sophomore Jessie is so desperate to fit in that she accepts a dare to spend the night in a local graveyard. There, she meets Paul, a night watchman, who tells her she's just in time for a rehearsal of actors impersonating the dead. It's a lie, of course, told to calm her as she meets spirits attracted to her life force and her ability to communicate with them. Drawn into a century-long family quarrel that is unsettling the cemetery residents, Jessie is asked to help Paul “fix things” (though, as Jessie admits, “ 'Fixing things' was hardly the phrase I would have chosen to connote banishing a crazed and malevolent spirit from the living and spiritual world”). The slightly confusing climactic battle simmers instead of sizzles, but fits with the understated tone of the novel. Readers should find the atmosphere old-fashioned—in a good way; Dahme's storytelling is more about the journey than the destination. Ages 12–up.