Painting on an unusually broad canvas, Jane Haltmaier’s debut novel THE SECRET OF SPIRIT LAKE is aimed at the YA audience. In 2023, teenager Amy is deflated when her parents move the family to a North Carolina Victorian lake house. Before long she meets the neighborhood kids, who tell her one of the house’s rooms is haunted. In 1938, meanwhile, Penny loses her parents to a fire and is sent to live in the same house with her uncaring aunt and uncle. They neglect (indeed abuse) their own two children and make Penny work, as she puts it, like Cinderella. Before long, a supernatural presence reveals itself to both teenagers.
Haltmaier is good with dialogue, as the conversations in both the 1930s and the present-day sound natural and unforced. This supports the descriptive language, which is exacting and thoughtful without sounding too lavish. The story also benefits from good pacing; scenarios and characters are sketched in well enough for the reader to apprehend their importance to the story. but not in such detail that they cause the whole narrative to lag.
As a debut work, THE SECRET OF SPIRIT LAKE is unambiguously impressive. However, there are some points that could bear revisiting. For one thing, there is a seeming disparity between the stories of Amy and Penny. They do rhyme somewhat: Amy cares for her two younger siblings (a boy and a girl), which resembles Penny’s more onerous duties of caring for her young cousins. But until fairly late in the novel, Penny’s story is the one that's much more interesting. Her determination to do whatever it takes to endure in the face of her step-parents’ abuses and neglect (she resorts to begging a neighbor for food to feed the children, squirrels away a little for herself to prevent starvation, and goes without schooling) make hers the more compelling story of the two by a mile. Amy’s frolicking in the lake’s waters with her new-found friends are less substantial by comparison.
Flaws notwithstanding, THE SECRET OF SPIRIT LAKE’s strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. This debut keeps readers guessing until the end.
Written by Jane Haltmaier, THE SECRET OF SPIRIT LAKE is an impressive debut that should appeal to YA readers.
~ Craig Jones for IndieReader