Review Detail

The Secret of Spirit Lake by Jane Haltmaier is a mystery that follows two girls whose lives connect across different time periods. In the present day, Amy is a fourteen-year-old who has just moved to a small town in upstate New York because her parents want to open a watersports store. She misses her old life and has a hard time fitting in at first. Things get weirder when she learns that the old Victorian house her family moved into may be haunted by a girl named Penny who disappeared years ago.

The story also takes readers back to 1938, where we meet Penny. After losing her parents in a fire, she is sent to live with relatives in the same house Amy now lives in, even staying in the same tower room. As Amy starts hearing strange noises at night, she and her friend Marissa begin trying to figure out what really happened to Penny all those years ago.

What I liked most about the book is how the story switches between Amy and Penny’s lives. Even though they lived in different times, they both deal with loneliness and big changes that they did not ask for. That made their experiences feel real and easy to understand. I also liked how small details, like the tower room and the lake, slowly connect the past and the present. The mystery kept me curious about what really happened, and I enjoyed seeing the clues come together. By the end, I could clearly picture the town, and the people in it, and the story stayed on my mind even after I finished reading.