Review Detail

High school drama student Avril Kendrick is returning to Whisper Cove, Connecticut for two reasons: she has won a spot in a prestigious theater camp run by a famous playwright, and it is where her mother drowned with Avril by her side, 12 years ago. Avril survived the icy water, but her mother did not. Avril has no memories of her life leading up to her mother's death and wants to learn about her mother and make sense of her death.
As Avril makes friends with some of the other students, immerses herself in the lead role of the play, and becomes close to the camp director's teenage son, she experiences strange occurrences, ghostly apparitions in the fog, sleepwalking, flashbacks and fainting. Realistically, a student at a summer camp exhibiting these disturbed behaviors would have had her parent called and been sent home. I liked Avril's friends Lex, Jude and Val.
The isolated coastal setting was eerie, chilling and dangerous. The author has a talent for haunting, atmospheric prose. The pacing was slow, yet the story ended abruptly without enough closure. Overall, an enjoyable YA paranormal mystery, but the execution could have been better. Thank you to BookishFirst for a copy to review.