Field of Screams

June 5, 2023
Armed with her copy of Heart-Stopping Heartland Hauntings, paranormal-obsessed 12-year-old Rebecca Graff travels with her mother from Chicago to Iowa to stay with Rebecca’s uncle Jon and his family in the same place her late—and rarely discussed—father spent his summers. Though she’s not thrilled to be away from her best friend, Rebecca hopes that she’ll finally encounter a ghost while exploring her eerie rural surroundings, especially when she learns that her dad was also fascinated by all things supernatural. Following an unsettling experience in an abandoned nearby farmhouse, Rebecca becomes convinced that there is a ghostly presence trying to communicate with her and determines to uncover the spirit’s secrets despite jeers from mean girl Kelsie, whose family owns the dilapidated property. The discovery of a creepy photograph and diary from the early 1900s, as well as her dad’s notes on his own spectral encounters, sets the tween on an expedition to unravel the mystery with the assistance of cute local boy Nick. Though some story elements feel overly convenient, Rebecca’s desire for connection to the father she barely knew—particularly in her emotionally withdrawn mother’s absence—lends a note of poignancy to the steadily paced scares in Parris’s atmospheric debut. Characters default to white. Ages 8–12. Agent: Karyn Fischer, BookStop Literary.