Starred review from August 5, 2019
In a spooky sequel to Small Spaces, Arden alternates between the perspectives of friends Ollie, Coco, and Brian as they travel with Ollie’s father and Coco’s mother to a Vermont mountain cabin, where Ollie’s dad has won a stay. The three friends have been inseparable since autumn, when they encountered an alternate world populated by living scarecrows and governed by a terrifying figure called the Smiling Man, and they are eager to put the experience behind them. Soon, though, snowed in at the foreboding Mount Hemlock Resort, which once served as an orphanage, the friends find themselves trapped within a paranormal labyrinth haunted by the ghosts of Gretel, a child who died after becoming locked in a closet, and of the frightening woman who locked her there. With the assistance of a reporter investigating the resort’s hauntings, Ollie, Coco, and Brian set out to communicate with the restless spirits. Arden excels at creating an atmosphere of claustrophobic tension with memorably menacing details. Readers will again be invested in the ghoulish surprises in store for the resourceful, likably flawed protagonists. Ages 10–up.
