Haunt Me

by Liz Kessler

Overview

Haunting and intensely romantic, Liz Kessler’s latest novel features a teen girl for whom falling in love could mean losing her heart — and maybe her life.

When her family moves after a rough year, Erin feels instantly at home in her new bedroom — even after she realizes that she’s not the only one occupying it. As Erin becomes accustomed to Joe, the spirit of the teenage boy who lived in the room before her, she starts to sense an inexplicable connection between them. Meanwhile, Joe’s brother, Olly, is trying to find a new normal since his brother passed away. Before Joe died, Olly was king of the school — and it’s not until Olly meets a new girl that he realizes just how many ways he’s changed . . . including the type of girl he could fall for. And when Erin finds herself caught between two brothers, and two choices, will her decision destroy her completely, or can she save herself before she’s lost forever? From Liz Kessler, the best-selling author of Read Me Like a Book, comes a young adult novel about how love can overcome the ultimate divide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763693800
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	07/11/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Liz Kessler is the author of the best-selling Emily Windsnap series, the Philippa Fisher series, and the middle-grade novels North of Nowhere, A Year Without Autumn, and Has Anyone Seen Jessica Jenkins? She lives in Cornwall, England.

When Liz was quite young (about eight) she wanted to be a poet. She grew up and did lots of other things, but then in 1999 she suddenly realized she wanted to write a book. She says, “It was as though I’d remembered what I’d always wanted to do, and I’ve never looked back.”

About mermaids, she says, “I am fascinated by the sea and all the mysteries of the ocean. It’s so huge and there is so much of it that we haven’t discovered and know nothing about. To me, mermaids represent the possibilities of what might just exist, on the edges of our imaginations and our world.”

Liz recently spent a year traveling around Europe in a camper van with her best friend and her dog, Poppy. She lives in England.

Editorial Reviews

05/08/2017
Kessler (Read Me Like a Book) complicates a traditional love triangle in unexpected and moving ways, alternating between the perspectives of two 16-year-olds. Erin was in an accident when she was 11, and she never found her footing in secondary school, which led to a friendless and bullied existence; her only solace is her poetry. Joe felt similarly isolated before he died, finding his voice by writing song lyrics. Shortly after Joe’s death, his family moves out of their home, and Erin’s family moves in. Joe recognizes Erin as a kindred spirit and slowly reveals himself to her. Through a mutual understanding of each other’s angst and loneliness, the two fall in love. But an affair between a ghost and a living girl doesn’t come without complications, the biggest of which is Joe’s older brother, Olly, who is also seeking a way to connect with Joe. This thoroughly romantic story is heartbreaking but hopeful: Kessler gives Joe a reason to cross over, and Olly and Erin a reason to live. Ages 12–up. Agent: Catherine Clarke, Felicity Bryan Associates. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Kessler delicately plumbs emotional depths, avoiding easy outs. With narration alternating among them, the three principals, all white, are well-drawn, but the increasingly desperate Joe exerts the strongest pull on readers. Though dead, the charismatic Joe tows this delicate romance from the genre shallows into deeper, darker waters, where holding onto love literally separates life from death.
—Kirkus Reviews

This thoroughly romantic story is heartbreaking but hopeful: Kessler gives Joe a reason to cross over, and Olly and Erin a reason to live.
—Publishers Weekly

The novel deals with issues of death, bullying, grief, and suicide in a nonpatronizing way. There is also a predictable love triangle. Fans of Twilight and other paranormal romance titles will enjoy the impossible situation in which Erin and Joe find themselves.
—School Library Journal

Bullying, suicide, drugs, betrayal—a plot summary makes it sound like just another problem novel. But Kessler’s delicate portrayal builds empathy for the three characters who share narrating duties...Chapter headings announcing each narrator help clarify the exposition, and distinctly different narrative voices let the reader see each character through multiple points of view. The jargon-free British setting will not deter American readers.
—Booklist Online

A paranormal romance not to be missed.
—Girls' Life

From the Publisher

06/01/2017
Gr 8 Up—Erin and Joe share a room. One of them is dead. Tragedies are behind the moves of both families. Joe's family leaves the house, and Erin's family moves in. Erin and Joe become aware of each other, and both desire a relationship, despite the chasm of death between them. This work alternates between Erin's and Joe's first-person perspectives. Erin struggles to come out of her shell and make friends in her new town and school. Her wish for a human connection drives her infatuation with Joe. The narrative begins with Joe watching his parents and brother leave the house. He doesn't yet realize that he is dead. Trapped in his room, unable to touch people or objects unless he feels strongly about them, Joe becomes engrossed with Erin. The novel deals with issues of death, bullying, grief, and suicide in a nonpatronizing way. There is also a predictable love triangle. Fans of Twilight and other paranormal romance titles will enjoy the impossible situation in which Erin and Joe find themselves. The more serious themes are dealt with adequately, though they serve as more of a backdrop to the plot. VERDICT A serviceable addition to paranormal romance collections.—Maureen Sullivan, Calumet City Public Library, IL

School Library Journal

2017-05-01
Her family moved to give Erin a fresh start, and, for the first time—though she'd gladly settle for going unnoticed—someone sees her clearly: Joe, the dead boy whose room she now occupies. The pendant Erin finds in her closet sparks their connection, as do the passionate, unhappy poems he's scrawled on the closet walls; her own writing's helped Erin survive years of chronic anxiety and bullying. Unclear on how he died or why he's confined to his bedroom, Joe regains a physical presence when Erin's present—they can even touch—but when she leaves the room, he drifts into an insubstantial half life. When his terror manifests physically, he's exorcized (against Erin's wishes) and reawakens in another former refuge, a seaside cove. Sensing his time is running out, helpless to move beyond his rocky prison, Joe clings to Erin, his remaining hold on a world no longer his. Meanwhile, Erin forges a friendship with Joe's older brother, Olly: handsome, popular, athletic, and very much alive. For Olly, consumed with guilt and grief since Joe's death, Erin's his path to a new life. Kessler delicately plumbs emotional depths, avoiding easy outs. With narration alternating among them, the three principals, all white, are well-drawn, but the increasingly desperate Joe exerts the strongest pull on readers. Though dead, the charismatic Joe tows this delicate romance from the genre shallows into deeper, darker waters, where holding onto love literally separates life from death. (Paranormal romance. 12-17)

Kirkus Reviews