The Thirteen Doors of Black House

“Pale, freckled” 12-year-old Maya Murtagh, an ambitious budding journalist, is thrilled to spend a week at Black House, a foreboding Maine mansion once home to her favorite mystery author, Augusta Black. She’s determined not only to unearth a story that will kick-start her journalism career but also to hatch a plan to make amends with her now-estranged best friend. Following her arrival with her parents and rowdy cousins, a creepy caretaker warns Maya away from the late author’s writing room and the 13 doors within, each, save for the last, representing one of Black’s 12 books. Frustrated, Maya seizes a rare afternoon of parental absence and ropes her cousins into investigating the glassed-in writing room. A phantom feline presence watches from the shadows as Maya opens a Pandora’s box of horrors straight from the bloodcurdling pages of Black’s novels. As a deathlike stench permeates the house and the kids are cut off from the adults, Maya scrambles to solve the mystery of the 13th door. Crackling dialogue and unsettling apparitions abound in this eerie prose debut, a gripping puzzler full of mystery and ghoulish giggles by Lavoie (Duck Duck Taco Truck). Ages 8–12. Agent: James McGowan, BookEnds Literary. (May)