Armstrong, Kelley. The summoning.

ARMSTRONG, Kelley. The summoning. HarperCollins. 400p. c2008. 978-0-061-66269-0. $17.99. (Lib. bdg: 978-0-061-66272-0. $18.99). J S

High school student Chloe is having a mental breakdown. She thinks that she is seeing people whom no one else is able to see. More than that, she believes that she is seeing dead people. In the aftermath of her breakdown, her Aunt Lauren, a local doctor, arranges for her to go to a small group home for troubled teens. While there she begins to realize that it's true that she is able to see the dead people and they do have something to tell her. However, if she ever wants to leave Lyle House, she can't let too many people know what she sees and what she hears. The other students at Lyle House are an odd mix. Simon's only problem seems to be that he and his adopted brother Derek have been abandoned by their father. Derek is a big kid whose shadow looms large and who doesn't seem to know how to control his own strength. Chloe is afraid of him and he doesn't seem to like her much either; that is, until Liz has a psychotic seizure and is removed from the house. Something about that incident doesn't feel right to Chloe or to housemate Rae, who is there for starting fires. Tori is the last of the housemates and she seems to have a crush on Simon, though he does not return her attention. But all of these teens share something else, some supernatural powers. It becomes increasingly apparent that Lyle House is not the group home that it seems to be; it harbors a dark, secret past.

This is the first of a proposed trilogy so it lays out the conflict and the characters for the volumes to come. By the end of the novel, there is enough suspense and uncertainty to have readers clamoring for volume two. Jonis Flint-Ferguson, Prof. of English/ Education, Gordon College, Wenham, MA