• Age: 8 to 12
• Grade: 3 to 7

Tuck Everlasting meets The Village in Shadow Grave, a delightfully eerie middle grade novel by Marina Cohen about a boy trapped in a strange town where secrets turn deadly and the unnatural lurks in the night.
Twelve-year-old Arlo is afraid of fire, creepy TV shows, and even his own shadow—but most of all, he’s afraid of losing his mother to the disease that nearly claimed her life a year ago.
During a Thanksgiving road trip, a sudden collision with a strange beast in the middle of the road totals the family’s car, and Arlo, his mom, and his sister end up stranded in a small town.
There’s something off about Livermore. No one has a phone or a car, and the townspeople aren’t exactly friendly. Without phone service to make a call for help, the family stays at the Samuels’ mansion, but inexplicable sightings at night set Arlo on edge. When he stumbles upon a dark secret that the town’s inhabitants will kill to keep, getting out of Livermore becomes a matter of life or death.

Marina Cohen is an elementary school teacher in the York Region District School Board. She has been nominated for the Sunburst, Red Maple Award, Rocky Mountain Book Award, and Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, and been an OLA Best Bet, JGL selection, and Amazon Book of the Month. She is the author of Chasing the White Witch, Ghost Ride, and Mind Gap. She lives in Markham, Ontario.

Marina Cohen's profile page

"Cohen blends inspiration from Tuck Everlasting and 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost...in this excellent, spooky story about a[n] anxious boy who tries to keep his family safe. Cohen's writing is sometimes disarmingly beautiful...It's a fantastic show of craft." - Booklist
"Cohen dishes up another expertly twisted chiller. Shivery reading for under the covers…or, for that matter, in broad daylight." - Kirkus
"Cohen...brings shivers with the isolated, insular small town and its creepy residents." - Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
"Equal parts spooky and charming, this story offers plenty of suspense and relatable ties to real-world difficulties." - Horn Book Magazine