September 1, 2026 by Scholastic Press
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Things have been perilous in Castle Hill, Ohio ever since Caleb and Lila's grandfather was murdered and Teddy moved to town in Kelly's The Last Resort. With the help of Rosteen, a ghost whom they met in Warga's The Claiming, the group has waged a war against the Fire Maiden, an evil spirit bent of bending people to her will and causing devastation and death. Lila almost lost her life in trying to control the Fire Maiden, but the group thinks that they can get help from Blight Howler, the ghost of the man who killed Lila's grandfather, to defeat her. They summon him, but he proves time and again that he's not trustworthy. As the town plans it's Founders' Day celebration, complete with a play, there are even more problems. Rosteen meets the ghost of Jeremiah, a disgruntled spirit who claims HE was the one who founded the town, along with Arnie, a performer killed by lights after one of Jeremiah's rages. Hoping to summon the ghosts of people killed by the Fire Maiden in various disasters in order to defeat her. the kids travel through another dimension to Cloquet, Minnesota, the site of the Moose Lake Fire of 1918, as well as to the Great Molasses Flood in Boston, to collect talismans. This travel is fraught with dangers, but the biggest danger surfaces as the town prepares to stage the play and Caleb is possessed by Blight Howler! He's taking away fire extinguishers and locking people inside the theater. Will Rosteen and his living friends be able to avert tragedy and finally defeat the Fire Maiden?
Strengths: I appreciated the inclusion of different historical disasters; readers who want to know more about "real life" ghosts related to disasters might want to look up Williams's True Hauntings: Deadly Disasters. The Fire Maiden is definitely evil, and giving her a long line of disasters makes fighting her seem even more important. We see a lot of Rosteen's emotions about being a ghost, and his childhood in the last century will be intriguing to middle grade readers, since there seems to be a lot of nostalgia for the 1990s right now. (Sorry, readers in your 30s and 40s. The 1990s are now ANCIENT to middle school students!) The town celebration makes sense, and brings together lots of different threads in The Last Resort storyline. This feels like the last book in the series, but could continue. That Fire Maiden is hard to keep down.
Weaknesses: Since there are three different authors, I need to recatalog these and file them all under F LAS so that I can find them. It seems fairer to all of the authors to catalog them this way. The ending was very sentimental and sweet, but I'm not sure that's something my horror readers will appreciate.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who liked evil ghost sagas like Senf's The Clackity and Poblocki's The Gathering.
Strengths: I appreciated the inclusion of different historical disasters; readers who want to know more about "real life" ghosts related to disasters might want to look up Williams's True Hauntings: Deadly Disasters. The Fire Maiden is definitely evil, and giving her a long line of disasters makes fighting her seem even more important. We see a lot of Rosteen's emotions about being a ghost, and his childhood in the last century will be intriguing to middle grade readers, since there seems to be a lot of nostalgia for the 1990s right now. (Sorry, readers in your 30s and 40s. The 1990s are now ANCIENT to middle school students!) The town celebration makes sense, and brings together lots of different threads in The Last Resort storyline. This feels like the last book in the series, but could continue. That Fire Maiden is hard to keep down.
Weaknesses: Since there are three different authors, I need to recatalog these and file them all under F LAS so that I can find them. It seems fairer to all of the authors to catalog them this way. The ending was very sentimental and sweet, but I'm not sure that's something my horror readers will appreciate.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who liked evil ghost sagas like Senf's The Clackity and Poblocki's The Gathering.
The reason given for the stores of molasses in Boston that contributed to the flood in 1919 was that it was used for munitions during WWI. I don't think that is the case. The molasses was owned by Purity Distilling, so the thought that it was being stock piled to manufacture illegal rum during Prohibition (which had started earlier in Massachusetts) seems more likely. I'm not an expert in this field, so I will make this a quibble rather than a fervent argument.
No comments:
Post a Comment