Beating Heart: A Ghost Story
By A. M. Jenkins

When seventeen year old Evan moves into an abandoned for decades, old Victorian house with his mother and younger sister shortly after his parents’ divorce, he is less then thrilled. Shortly after moving in, Evan begins to have dreams, reoccurring dreams of a sexual nature with an unknown pale-haired girl which makes his brunette girlfriend, Carrie, more noticeable of his emotion withdrawal and becomes more demanding about their relationship. When Evan finds a metal box filled with letters and newspaper clippings he learns that a sixteen year old girl with pale-hair died in the house. Could this be the girl he has been dreaming about? The story unfolds using two uniquely different voices; that of the ghost girl told through lyrical poetry, and that of Evan told through a third-person account in present tense, which makes this a decent quick read. The two voices bring past and present together that collide by the end and changes both ghost and boy forever. Sex does play a major role in the story but not in a graphic way that would made this book inappropriate for the teenage reader.