The Presence

This unusual ghost story finds Catherine spending Christmas with her grandmother and trying to find some escape from her guilt over the death of a friend on the way home from a high school party. A chance meeting with a mysterious young man who offers hope for finding relief becomes much more complicated than first appearances suggest as Catherine is drawn in deeper and deeper into a mystery that spans generations. Alyssa Bresnahan captures the innocence and yearning of Catherine and personifies the other major characters. Bresnahan presents this compact mystery with a good pace that maintains suspense in appropriate places and moves the plot along. J.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine