The Secret of Grim Hill by Linda DeMeulemeester

Linda was another one of my Clarion West classmates. She gave the first impression of being a Canadian, suburban mom. Then I started reading her stories and got a little scared. The horror this woman produces is so unsettling that I sometimes wonder how she lives in her own head.

But she's got considerable range. It isn't all horror. She produced a space opera story I quite liked and her first week story was hard science fiction.

Now she's got a book out, The Secret of Grim Hill, which I read and really loved. It's middle grade/young adult and, yes, horror. The main character, Cat Peters, is a new girl in town who tries to get into the local prep school by trying out for the soccer team. The school selects two teams and has them play against each other. Cat makes one of the teams, so all she needs to do is have her team win, and she's in at the school. As soon as practice starts, though, things start getting strange. A shadow visitor appears in the bleachers and people in town begin to act as if not fully aware of their world. I highly recommend this book. I also have it in my store.