Kindred Spirits

by Julia Watts

Miranda Jasper is different from the other kids in the small town of Wilder, Kentucky. Like all the women in her family, she has the Sight--the ability to see into other people's thoughts. Though her granny assures Miranda that the Sight is a gift, it often feels like a curse, especially when Miranda's middle-school classmates label her "the witch girl." At first Miranda has only one friend her age, Abigail, the ghost of a long-dead girl who haunts Miranda's family's Victorian mansion. But then Adam So comes to Wilder. Adam is different, too, as a horror movie-obsessed urban kid who is shocked to learn that his is the only Asian family in all of Wilder. United by their differences, Miranda and Adam become friends, and Miranda introduces an amazed Adam to Abigail. Soon Adam tells his two new comrades about strange, supernatural goings-on in his house. Acting on their curiosity, the three unlikely detectives--girl, guy, and ghost--unearth the story of a horrific crime committed in their town seventy years before--a crime for which an innocent young man was punished.

Spooky and suspenseful, Kindred Spirits is the story of three extraordinary friends who use all powers available to them, from the internet to ESP, to try to end their town's legacy of injustice.

174 pages, Nook

First published September 8, 2008

About the author

Julia Watts is the author of over a dozen novels, including the Lambda Literary Award-winning Finding H.F.., the Lambda Literary and Golden Crown Literary Society Award finalist The Kind of Girl I Am, and the Lambda Literary Award finalist and Golden Crown Literary Award-winning Secret City. She holds a B.A. in English from The University of Tennessee, an M.A. in English from the University of Louisville, an MFA in Writing from Spalding University, and a PhD in Literacy Studies from The University of Tennessee. She lives in Knoxville and is a member of the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame. Her young adult novel, Quiver, was a SIBA Okra Pick and a finalist for the Foreword Indies Award, and her young adult novel Needlework won an Honorable Mention in the Foreword Indie Awards and was selected by the Library of Congress for its "Great Reads from Great Places" program. Her new novel for adults, Lovesick Blossoms, is available from Three Rooms Press.

Reviews

[Maria Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was good. I'd guess it's middle grade. Pretty simple plot/solution with a very neatly tied ending. The characters were engaging and fun. Easy, fun read. The kindle copy I borrowed from the library had some formatting issues (words run together, odd paragraph or sentence breaks now and then) but nothing that made it unreadable.

[Candy Wood]

Good children's mystery/ghost story, set in small-town Kentucky (with a trip to the big city of Lexington thrown in). Eleven-year-old Miranda and Adam, both "different" (everyone thinks her mother and granny are witches, and he is Korean), solve a cold case involving racial injustice. Too bad somebody didn't do some copyediting at Bean Pole Books.