The Light (Morpheus Road)
Grade 6–10—High school sophomore Marshall Seaver is being haunted by a figure out of his imagination in this fast-paced fantasy thriller. The skeletal character he obsessively draws, the Gravedigger, has come to life and is threatening him. He's also seeing other frightening images that don't make sense. Marshall was supposed to spend his summer vacation with his best friend, but Coop is forced to go to his family's lake house instead. Then he disappears, and Marshall is the only person who believes that his friend is in trouble and hasn't just run off again. Coop's snobbish older sister is unwillingly drawn into helping him figure out what's going on after she experiences some of the same impossible visions that he has. Marshall's narration gives the plot credibility. Readers experience what he is feeling as the suspense builds and events spiral out of his control to the twisty ending. In this first book in the trilogy, major plot threads remain unresolved but, hopefully, they will be explained in the rest of the series. Like MacHale's "Pendragon" books (S & S), the writing and characterization are secondary to the action-packed plot. Most readers will be hooked from the first line to the last and will be anxiously awaiting the next book.—Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton(c) Copyright 2010.  Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc.  No redistribution permitted.