Trona is a small, smoggy, insignificant town in Colorado. Besides a booming chemical plant, the only thing that characterizes this dismal town is dirt, sagebrush, and an enormous abandoned mansion.
Seven years ago, as Camm herded a pack of trick-or-treaters past the mansion, her young neighbor Hugh disappeared, becoming just one of many children who have vanished from Trona over the years . Now a senior in high school, Camm is still haunted by the tragedy and is sure the answer to the mysterious disappearances lies hidden in the decaying mansion. Joining forces with her best friend, Cal, who also happens to be Hugh’s older brother, Camm naively begins a perilous search for the truth.
As things spiral out of control, and others die, Camm and Cal discover it will take all their combined ingenuity to stay alive. An unseen creature, lurking deep within the bowels of the mansion, seems to have supernatural powers and is now hunting them. Unless they can make sense out of the few pieces of the puzzle they manage to unearth, the monster will certainly destroy them, and like so many others before them, they will be gone without a trace.
Review
I received a copy of Pitch Green through my publisher, Jolly Fish Press for review. I read it in preparation for the tour, but I confess, I didn't really know what it was about. Because of that, I picked it up with no expectations whatsoever. What I found was a delightful, well-written, YA horror story. I breezed through this novel with no trouble at all, and always excited to read more.
Camm is a typical teenage girl, dreaming of life at a big Unversity to, in part, escape her small town. Children have been disappearing inexplicably for years, including the younger brother of her best friend and boyfriend, Cal. When things get interesting and mysterious, Camm takes it on herself to investigate what never seems to have been investigated. What she finds is a twenty-year-old secret, separably entwined with her small town's history.
Both Camm and Cal are great characters. They come across as real kids--and real smart ones--with real problems. They made me smile and root for them constantly. The mystery was well-written, making me turn pages, and the pacing was perfect.
The book would be a bit scary for younger readers--even I shivered a few times--but it's not at all explicit. PG-13 rating in my book. I never read much YA horror in my day, so I can't say for sure that it's comparable to something like Fear Street, but it seems to me this would be a good comparison. Overall, I found it to be delightful and would recommend it to anyone who wants a fun, creepy read! Hats off to the Brothers Washburn! I look forward to their next novel with great eagerness.
Camm is a typical teenage girl, dreaming of life at a big Unversity to, in part, escape her small town. Children have been disappearing inexplicably for years, including the younger brother of her best friend and boyfriend, Cal. When things get interesting and mysterious, Camm takes it on herself to investigate what never seems to have been investigated. What she finds is a twenty-year-old secret, separably entwined with her small town's history.
Both Camm and Cal are great characters. They come across as real kids--and real smart ones--with real problems. They made me smile and root for them constantly. The mystery was well-written, making me turn pages, and the pacing was perfect.
The book would be a bit scary for younger readers--even I shivered a few times--but it's not at all explicit. PG-13 rating in my book. I never read much YA horror in my day, so I can't say for sure that it's comparable to something like Fear Street, but it seems to me this would be a good comparison. Overall, I found it to be delightful and would recommend it to anyone who wants a fun, creepy read! Hats off to the Brothers Washburn! I look forward to their next novel with great eagerness.
Smoldering Inspiration
By The Brothers Washburn
Berk and I have been asked several
times to say what inspired us to write Pitch
Green, our scary young adult novel about two teenagers hunted by a fearsome
creature that lives in an immense and bizarre mansion that is located in their
desolate, desert town. This is a hard
question. I sometimes feel that the most
inspiring thing I come across anymore is a plate of warm chocolate chip
cookies, accompanied by a tall glass of cold milk.
Not the stuff of novels, scary or
otherwise. We have reached this point in
our lives where we have seen and done, well, not “it all”; but all of it that
we have wanted to see and do. It is not
so much that we are beyond inspiration, but that inspiration has moved on to
influence younger, better-looking people than us.
Perhaps that is the secret of Pitch Green. It takes place in the deep desert in the real-life
mining town of Trona, California. This
is the town of our youth, where we grew up, on the doorstep of Death Valley. The novel is based on a scary late-night story
that has been a part of our lives since we were children. It is a story we told on scout outings. We told it to our friends, girlfriends,
cousins and even to a few people we didn’t like. We told it around campfires, on road trips
and even in a school class. This was a
story we loved. And, we loved to use it
to scare the crap out of each other.
The Brothers Washburn |
So, while inspiration may evade us
now in our white-hair days; we were able reach back, (way freaking back) to
those days of yore, (I think it is federal law that says you are not allowed to
have “days of yore” until you reach at least 50 years of age) when inspiration
was an everyday event--back when inspiration came in a box of cereal, when
inspiration was always just around the corner.
It was in the last book I read, in the latest episode of Star Trek or
Lost in Space, or in the simple smile of the pretty girl next door. Oh, to be so inspired again.
But, I wax sickenly
philosophic. Sorry. I guess we really were inspired to write this
book; but it just so happens that the inspiration came to us a very long time
ago--over forty years ago. It has been
sitting, smoldering inside us, waiting to burst into flame when we were all
done growing up (if that’s possible), when we could look back and see more
clearly. Some things do get better with
age. In a way, that is kind of inspiring
in and of itself.
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