Stay

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY JUN 13, 2011

To escape her obsessive ex-boyfriend, Clara and her single father spend the summer in a rented house in a small beach community called Bishop Rock. In alternating chapters, she recounts her increasingly frightening relationship with controlling Christian, as well as her attempts to recover, now that no one back home knew where I was. In this gripping, layered novel, Clara is stalked, first by cell phone and later in person, by Christian. Clara is also haunted by her own feelings of culpability: The thing is, it can feel good to make someone lose all control. She is not the only one with ghosts: the legends of Bishop Rock are full of them, and many people around her have chilling stories, including her father, a smart-ass writer hiding a big family secret. Clara s unease mounts as she grapples with her emotions surrounding the past and the impending threat of Christian s arrival. Fear has made Clara a fiercely good observer of detail, and Caletti s powerfully descriptive prose serves her character well, as she provides insight into ideas about love, power, and who we forgive. Ages 12 up.