Ellen Ohs Spirit Hunters meets Katherine Ardens Small Spaces in this scary good time (Kirkus Reviews) middle grade supernatural mystery following a girl whose discovery of a magical clearing near her summer camp ends up putting her best friend in danger.
Pinas first trip to summer camp is a chance to escape her overbearing parents and finally go on an adventure with her best friend, Jo. But Camp Clear Skies hides a secret: a clearing in the deep woods the older kids call the Glade. After falling asleep here, Pina and Jo are able to enter one anothers dreams, transforming into superheroes and knights in shining armor, fighting back their nightmares in epic adventures.
At first, the friends think theyve discovered a secret more exciting than any video gameuntil Pinas nightmares start leaking out into waking life. Worse, something seems to have followed them back from those dreamsand whatever it is, its taking over Jo. Jo has always been the superhero in their friendship, but Pina cant just abandon them to their fate.
To save her friend, Pina journeys deeper into the Glade than she ever has before, facing the worst of her own fears and Jos. There, she must confront the consciousness trying to steal her friends body and learn what happened twenty years ago that shut down Camp Clear Skies and changed the Glade forever.
Former neuroscientist, Astounding Awardnominated and Judith A. Markowitz Awardwinning author Naseem Jamnia (they/them) writes inclusive speculative fiction for kids, teens, and adults. Their adult fantasy novella The Bruising of Qilwa was a finalist for the Crawford, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards. Their story in the YA horror anthology The White Guy Dies First was called artful and reminiscent of director David Cronenbergs work by Kirkus Reviews. Naseem has been a Bitch Media, Lambda Literary, and Otherwise fellow and the inaugural Samuel R. Delany fellow, and their nonfiction has been published in The Washington Post, The Rumpus, Cosmopolitan, New Orleans Review, and others. Naseem is the managing editor and book designer for Sword & Kettle Press, a tiny publishing house of inclusive speculative writing. A Persian Chicagoan and child of Iranian immigrants, Naseem lives outside Reno, Nevada, with their geologist husband and four furred creatures. The Glade is their middle grade debut. Find out more and join their newsletter at NaseemWrites.com or on Instagram @JamsterNazzy.
