MMGM- X Marks the Haunt

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Unleashing Readers

Currie, Lindsay. X Marks the Haunt
January 6, 2026 by Delacorte Press
E ARC Provided by Edelweiss Plus

In X Marks the Haunt by Lindsay Currie (published January 6, 2026 by Delacorte Press), Will Stone spends a lot of time at the Graceland Cemetery in Chicago because his mother is the executive director, and because he is very interested in the history and the stories of the people who are interred there. Not only does he help his mother with looking up information in the old fashioned file cards for inquiring families, but he rides along with groundskeeper Art and intern Addie on security sweeps that also check on the coyote population.

His best friend, Sean (aka Stash) understands and doesn't give him a hard time, but Will downplays his background at school, worried that the unpleasant Chris will treat him the same way he does Toby, whose parents run a local funeral home. Chris calls Toby "body boy" and badgers him constantly, so when Will finds out that his class is taking a field trip to Graceland, he is worried that this will put him on Chris' radar. Will and Stash are put on a team for a scavenger hunt along with Henry and Michelle, who are both friendlier with Chris than Will would like, but they all enjoy finding out information about the cemetery and seem to get along. Unfortunately, Chris decides that getting into the cemetery after dark and live streaming from a tomb is a good idea, and he compels Will to give him a key to the Marvin Ryerson tomb. Will knows that the tomb is hard to get into, and he's not surprised when Chris and Henry are spooked and run back to the entrance, pursued by Art, before they can get in.

What is surprising is that Chris has thrown the 150 year old key somewhere in the grounds. This is catastrophic, and Will knows he needs to find it. As he searches, he feels that something is off, and he also hears something sinister whispering his name. When a ghost appears in his bedroom, the trees in the cemetery start dying, and the lake level goes down, Will feels that there are ghosts at work, although he doesn't really believe in them. With the help of Stash, Michelle, and Henry, Will scours the historical records and finds a young woman who died of tuberculosis. This incurable, deadly disease often devastated entire families, and was sometimes thought to have some vampiric qualities. Because of this, Anna McDowell's body was exhumed, and her ghost won't move on until she gets some better treatment. With more trees dying, and Will's mother concerned that the cemetery will lose its hard fought status as an arboretum, something Will's late father worked on, can Will and his friends appease the ghost before she causes more chaos?

I enjoyed X Marks the Haunt as much as I did this author’s It's Watching and It Found Us, because Ms.Currie uses her knowledge of and research into actual cemeteries to give her creepy tales an extra layer of verisimilitude. This is set in November, and the feeling of the dark, dank, chill crept right into my bones! Will is an engaging character who truly enjoys taking care of the cemetery and protecting its legacy, but he also yearns for friends who can understand his somewhat unusual background. This makes his struggle in dealing with Chris realistically painful to watch; some of my favorite moments were when Will had had enough and told Chris that he needed to stop what he was doing! The inclusion of Chicago cemetery history is interesting; I wonder if readers will be compelled to pick up Murphy's (2012) Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure by Jim Murphy or John Green's new Everything is Tuberculosis (which I haven't read) to find out how widespread the connection between "consumption" and vampirism was! The adults in the book were both harried yet supportive, and treated Will with respect, even when he makes poor choices. Young readers will pick this up for the late night graveyard runs and the frightening ghosts, making this a book that will command a variety of audiences.

While having Will's father killed in a car accident two years before the book begins does make Will's desire to preserve the trees and the arboretum status more understandable, it was unnecessary to kill yet another middle grade parent. It would have been more realistic and poignant to have Will's grandfather be the one who had passed away after spending a life devoted to Graceland. I am never a fan of books where middle grade parents are killed without reason.

Like Currie's other books, X Marks the Haunt is a masterful mix of history and spookiness that will give readers shivers down their spines, but not scare them so much that they are afraid to hunt down a local cemetery, do some grave rubbings, and learn about local history through gravestones. They might want to be just a little more careful than they should be not to disturb any murderous ghosts!