The Sculptured Rocks

Dan Buchanan is twelve years old, and while his father is Missing in Action in Vietnam, he and his artistic mom struggle to make ends meet in Cape McAllister, New Hampshire, a small beach community infamous for its haunted Victorian homes and inns and taverns. He has a paper route, a star spot on his baseball team, a best friend Tom, and a bully named Krenshaw who suddenly thinks the summer before Junior High is the best time to begin his torture.

To resolve her financial woes, Dan's mother decides to host fictitious ghost tours in their Victorian home for the summer tourists who flock the town. She and Dan create elaborate props and a backstory of a spirit complete with tragic consequences, and all goes well with their chicanery until the presence of Anna Rinaldi, who died in 1924, appears in the hallway on the third floor and demands, no, not demands, screams attention. And while a ghost is good for business, this one doesn't go away.

Dan strikes up a friendship with a young farmer he meets at The Sculptured Rocks, a natural local swimming hole. The encounters become the catalyst where Dan pieces together the different components of his life and invokes his own sense of authenticity and power. With a nod to Gothic Horror and even Shirley Jackson, The Sculptured Rocks is both a coming-of-age tale and an authentic ghost story.