The Ghost Tree

July 13, 2020
Turning to all-out horror for the first time, dark fantasy author Henry (the Chronicles of Alice series) plays familiar tropes straight in this unoriginal tale of the evil that lurks just beneath the surface of an idyllic small town. It’s 1985 and teenager Lauren diMucci’s life in Smiths Hollow, Ill., is upended by the murder of her father. When two teenage girls are also found dead—and in pieces—Laura theorizes that the crimes may be connected to something lurking in the woods. When she goes digging into the history of Smiths Hollow she learns of her own surprising connection to the witches who once lived there—and to a curse they cast that went horribly awry. Meanwhile, police officer Alex Lopez untangles a web of lies that obscures a sinister annual occurrence: the sacrifice of teenage girls to a malevolent supernatural entity. Henry writes with a keen eye for detail, drawing readers into the disturbing world with pitch-perfect ’80s nostalgia and plenty of eerie atmospherics. Unfortunately, what should be heart-stopping scares fall flat, and the predictable plot twists will strike many as foregone conclusions. Seasoned horror readers will appreciate the prose but be underwhelmed by the story. Agent: Lucienne Diver, the Knight Agency.

September 1, 2020
Henry is known for her dark take on fairy tales (most recently with Looking Glass, 2020), and here she offers a vividly visceral visit to small-town horror. Smiths Hollow is a small, prosperous town with happy families and an almost nonexistent crime rate. That prosperity comes at a terrible price, paid for each year by a town daughter and conveniently forgotten about by the residents after the toll is paid. But something has changed. The father of fourteen-year old Lauren was murdered the year before. She does not know the circumstances and her mother seems unable to explain what he was doing in the forest the night he died. With the investigation officially closed, Lauren has new troubles to occupy her adolescent mind. Constantly at odds with her mother, she is drifting apart from her childhood best friend, her four-year old brother is suddenly, inexplicably displaying what appear to be magical, psychic abilities, and a long-hidden dark entity is slaughtering innocent girls in the woods. A mesmerizing curse, racial bigotry, and coming-of-age angst make for a bizarre tale of horror.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)