The Haunted »

Jessica Verday writes the first drafts of her novels by hand, using spiral-bound notebooks and black pens. She likes: things that smell nice, rainy nights, old books, cemeteries, Johnny Cash, zombie movies, L.J. Smith books, abandoned buildings, trains, and snow. She is currently hand-writing the continuation of Abbey and Caspian's story from her home in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. Find out more at jessicaverday.com.

An impossible truth. An impossible love.

After a summer spent reclaiming her sanity and trying to forget the boy she fell in love with--the boy who must not exist, cannot exist, because she knows that he is dead--Abbey returns to Sleepy Hollow, ready to leave the ghosts of her past behind. She throws herself into her schoolwork, her perfume-making, and her friendship with Ben, her cute and funny lab partner, who just might be her ticket to getting over Caspian once and for all.

But Abbey can never get over Caspian, and Caspian has no choice but to return to her side, for Caspian is a Shade, and Abbey is his destiny. They are tied not only to each other, but also to the town of Sleepy Hollow, and to the famous legend that binds their fates--a legend whose dark truths they are only beginning to guess....

“Spectacular! The Hollow keeps you reading from beginning to end without coming up for air.” --L.J. Smith, bestselling author of The Vampire Diaries and Night World

VOYA

After spending time in the country with her great aunt in an effort to heal from the "nervous breakdown" her parents consider a psychological reaction to her best friend's death, seventeen-year-old Abbey returns to her home town of Sleepy Hollow, New York to participate in the memorial service for her friend. There, she rekindles her relationship with Caspian, the mysterious and handsome young man she only recently discovered is a Shade—a ghost who can interact with psychically-sensitive living humans. As Abbey learns more about Caspian's life and postmortem limitations, her love for him grows both more passionate and more frustrating; the couple may enjoy each other's physical touch only one day per year, on the anniversary of Caspian's death. Meanwhile, a quartet of strangers with musical voices lingers on the periphery of Abbey's life, and she has several chilling encounters with a good looking but malevolent young man she suspects was her best friend's secret boyfriend. Like Twilight (Little Brown) and the Vampire Diaries (HarperTeen) series, Verday's planned trilogy (of which The Haunted is the second installment) is characterized by its protagonists' unrequited passions and its narrative's gradual revelation of a second, supernatural world, the rules of which are distinct and complicated. This lengthy novel ends with a cliffhanger, as Abbey is positioned to make a choice that may or may not ensure the eternity of her relationship with Caspian; this trope will all but guarantee an audience for the trilogy's final novel. Reviewer: Amy Pattee