The Drowned - Hardcover

Grade 7 Up-Lily, a teenager spending the summer in Atlantic City with her aunt, becomes entangled in a ghastly legend. Years earlier, a teenage boy drowned near his oceanfront home, and his grieving mother placed his bed on the front lawn in hopes that he might return one day. Inspired by this tale, Lily puts together a "ghost tour" to earn money. Clark, a handsome boardwalk con artist, offers to help her. Then the dead boy's mother, Mrs. Gurney, invites Lily's tour group into her home, where Lily becomes violently ill. Thus begins her terrifying experience as a prisoner of the wealthy old woman. Elements of the story, like the legend of the bed, promise excitement and mystery. But foreshadowing is a bit heavy-handed. The partly omniscent point of view lets readers discover early on how bitter Clark is about mothers, making his barbed dialogue with Mrs. Gurney seem extremely obvious. Lily's initial meeting with the woman also seems contrived. Characterization is a little uneven. Lily is a resourceful, likable heroine, but Clark's villain-turned-hero and Mrs. Gurney's poisonously sweet villainess are a little two-dimensional; as for minor characters, it's hard to believe that Lily's aunt would let her sick niece stay in a stranger's home. Overall, this story is like a rough diamond-it needs a little more polishing.
Mary Jo Drungil, Niles Public Library District, IL
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 7^-12. While spending a boring summer with her aunt, Lily devises a tour of Atlantic City's haunted side to make some money and soon finds herself enmeshed in the grim story of a drowned teenage boy and the "Drowned Boy's Bed." A con artist and petty thief named Clark DeLuge becomes Lily's betrayer and her savior as she plunges into the mystery. It's apparent fairly early that Clark is the ghostly drowned boy, who, it turns out, returns every summer thanks to his demented mother's ritual drowning of a teenager. This year, the victim is to be Lily. Lily, who begins as a fairly strong character, gradually becomes less interesting, but Clark's mother remains a convincing, truly creepy image of maternal instinct gone bad. The plot doesn't always hold together, and Lily's romantic angst in the final pages isn't believable. Still, this supernatural potboiler will be an easy booktalk, and it will add a little dimension to collections saturated with series horror titles. Janice Del Negro