cover image Siren

Siren

Tricia Rayburn, Egmont USA, $16.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-60684-074-0

After fearless and beautiful 18-year-old Justine Sands dies after jumping off an ocean cliff at her family's Maine summer home, her grieving younger sister, Vanessa, is certain it was neither suicide nor an accident. Teenage Caleb, who was with Justine that night, is missing, so Vanessa joins forces with his older brother, Simon, to find him as well as answers to the mystery. At every turn, however, a vicious girl named Zara obstructs their path. Why does Vanessa get searing headaches when Zara is near? And what do strange weather patterns have to do with the string of deaths that follow Justine's? Part romance, part mystery, Rayburn's (the Maggie Bean series) tale is a solid supernatural thriller, but it doesn't coalesce into anything more than the sum of its parts. Not all of the plot threads are well resolved— for example, it's never clear why Vanessa is sometimes able to hear her dead sister speaking to her. Vanessa's dry-eyed, obsessive grief keeps sympathy at a distance, and her feelings for Simon don't have much heft. Ages 14–up. (June)