Halcyon

Starred review from May 28, 2018
Architect Martin Lovegrove, the hero of this exceptional paranormal thriller from Youers (The Forgotten Girl), and his wife struggle with the extreme night terrors of their 10-year-old daughter, Edith. The urgency of helping Edith becomes more pronounced after she experiences precognitive visions of a suicide bombing in downtown Buffalo, N.Y., carried out by
a man named Garrett Riley and causing hundreds of casualties. A psychic, Calm Dumas, whom Martin and Laura reach
out to, asserts that Edith is constantly “streaming” psychic data, and provides the child with a method for protecting herself from the horrific images she visualizes. But that coping mechanism fails after a tragic death, which makes Martin vulnerable to an invitation to join the selective community of Halcyon, located on an island in Lake Ontario. The idea of a fresh start in a small, off-the-grid setting, without the distractions and trivialities of modern life, appeals to Martin, who’s unaware of Halcyon’s dark secrets, including its connection with Riley. Youers humanizes all his characters and makes readers feel the pain of the events he describes. Agent: Howard Morhaim, Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.