2012 Nutmeg Nominee

Deep and Dark and Dangerous was a satisfying ghost story that I think readers will enjoy. It was a quick, suspenseful read through most of it and only began to drag in the final chapters.
Ali's aunt and mother harbor a strange and dark secret involving a childhood summer in Maine. Although Ali's mother has no desire to ever visit that place again, her sister, Dorsie, decides to spend the summer there. Ali, in spite of her mother's protests, goes along to care for her cousin Emma. Quickly, strange things begin happening. The townspeople all remember the family, however, no one seems eager to tell Ali what happened all those years ago. That is, til Emma meets Sissy.
Sissy holds a great deal of resentment against Ali and her family and goes out of her way to put Emma, who is infatuated with her, in harms way. She tells Ali that her mother and aunt were responsible for a young girl drowning in the lake many years ago and Emma begins to imagine "the bones" coming out of the lake to get them.
I figured out the "mystery" to this story pretty much from the get-go. However, I think that the young readers will enjoy the suspense and surprise of it all.