When Ghosts Call Us Home

September 1, 2023
An amateur horror movie star returns years later to the haunted house where the film was shot, hoping to get answers and resolve her fears. Sophia Galich was 12 when her older sister, Layla, made her the unwilling star of Vermillion. Cashore House's reputation is haunted by the film's startlingly realistic and disturbing footage, combined with the dark lore surrounding the tragic fate of a well-known Russian ballerina who died there in the 1930s, both of which make it a cult favorite among V-heads. These ardent fans believe everything in the film was true and claim that viewing it leads to paranormal experiences. Sophia, however, chooses to believe it all was fake, accepting the reassurances her sister gave her about special effects. Two years ago, Layla mysteriously vanished; eager to find her, Sophia, now 17, agrees to play the lead in a documentary that includes an on-site reenactment. She's convinced the house holds the answers to her sister's disappearance and the question of whether Vermillion's ghosts are just memories of her fears, or if she was--and still is--embroiled in a demonic game of identity, possession, and death. An intricate paranormal backstory imbues the book with robust terror that may provoke readers to wonder whether it's all real. The artful weaving of ghostly horrors with the off-kilter creepiness of films and fandoms creates multiple layers of fear in this deeply unsettling page-turner. Main characters are cued white. Haunting, intense, and eerily spooky. (Horror. 14-18)

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October 1, 2023
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* A cursed house, a cult film, and a girl whose fear launched an obsessive fandom are at the center of this haunting and unsettling horror novel by de Becerra (Oasis, 2020). When Sophia was a little girl, she starred in the underground horror film her enigmatic older sister, Layla, filmed in their historic seaside home, Cashore House. Sophia's genuine terror at the vignettes her sister created helped the film gain a fervent following but left both physical and emotional scars. Years later, Layla has gone missing. Sophia returns to Cashore House in hopes of recovering her sister and finds that the trauma she experienced there may not be as fabricated as Layla claimed. The clandestine rituals built up around Layla's film effectively draw Sophie, the film's fandom, and the reader into an engagement with something dark, compelling, and slippery. De Becerra's narrative is both dreamy and tight, creating a disorienting, nightmarish atmosphere without making readers feel lost. Read-alikes include Dawn Kurtagich's Teeth in the Mist (2019), Kat Ellis' Harrow Lake (2020), and Rin Chupeco's The Sacrifice (2022), but this should be recommended to fans of horror in any format.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 1, 2023

Gr 8 Up-Five years ago, when Sophia was 12, her older sister Layla directed a horror film called Vermillion, set at the creepy old Cashore House their parents were renovating at the time. Sophia was the star, and the ghosts were not real-or were they? The film was a found footage, paranormal watch that has since received cultlike status, including an online legend known as "The Path" that can only be taken by true fans. Two years ago, Layla disappeared without a trace. Sophia gets the chance to look for her sister when a director wants to go back to Cashore House for a new documentary about Layla's viral movie, but what horrors will she find? This story starts out slowly, taking time to set the eerie mood of a missing sister and a life-changing horror film. The book is broken up into several parts: one focusing on the house itself, the setting, and background information; then the second part focuses on the path, and gets a little more confusing for readers, yet the mystery will keep most turning the pages. The final sections pick up the pace and reveal more of this twisty mystery to its out-of-the-box conclusion. VERDICT A quiet paranormal horror that, because of its slow pacing, would be a secondary purchase in libraries where these kinds of stories are popular.-Molly Dettmann

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