A ghost will find his way home.
Jennie Lovell’s life is the very picture of love and loss. First she is orphaned and forced to live at the mercy of her stingy, indifferent relatives. Then her fiancé falls on the battlefield, leaving her heartbroken and alone. Jennie struggles to pick up the pieces of her shattered life, but is haunted by a mysterious figure that refuses to let her bury the past.
When Jennie forms an unlikely alliance with a spirit photographer, she begins to uncover secrets about the man she thought she loved. With her sanity on edge and her life in the balance, can Jennie expose the chilling truth before someone-or something-stops her? [Summary from Amazon]
Eerie undertones, fascinating material, and strong writing make Picture the Dead a welcome and refreshing addition to the YA paranormal genre.
This novel filters the spiritualist movement through the eyes of Jennie, a young woman who has lost much to the Civil War. When prompted by her guardians to contact a medium who uses photography to channel the dead, Jennie is hesitant. She doesn’t believe that the deceased stay tucked in their graves; her brother’s comforting presence, his thoughts and advice, have surrounded her constantly since his death, after all. It’s more that she finds the thought of capitalizing on grief repulsive. At the fickle mercy of her relatives, she makes the appointment for a spirit photograph, and what it reveals to her alone will send her on a harrowing, dangerous journey.
Regarding spiritualism, there is no censure in this novel; it exposes charlatans and true believers alike, essentially saying that people likely took from mediums, spirit photographers, and seances what they wanted to, whether it be comfort or outrage. I appreciated that there was no obvious bias in the writing. If there had been I doubt Jennie’s story would have been as haunting – no pun intended – as it was.
Stripped down to its most basic element, Picture the Dead is a ghost story. A ghost story set against the backdrop of the Civil War. It’s hard to express what makes that combination so potent. Spooky isn’t the right word to use, nor is scary; it was deliciously eerie. And it was all too easy to place yourself in the thick of things thanks to Griffin’s writing, which was uncluttered but lyrical, and always conveyed just enough to get one’s imagination racing.
Accompanying the text are several illustrations done by Lisa Brown. If you go into the book thinking you can skip over them or superficially admire them, think again. They are very much a part of the story, revealing clues and lending insight, and I loved that that was the case.
For me, this book was a wonderful palette cleanser. My inclination towards the paranormal was satisfied, but there was so much history to appreciate, and a mystery, too. I thoroughly enjoyed all of it.
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Teen Fire is holding a giveaway in celebration of the anniversary of the spiritualist movement; they’re calling it “Do You See Dead People, too?“
In order to take part you need to answer one of the following questions in the comment thread that the link above directs you to:
- Do you believe that communication with the dead is possible?
- Have you ever felt the presence of someone who was not physically present?
Winners will be randomly selected – oh, and there’ll be 50 of them – and can pick either Picture the Dead or We Hear the Dead as their prize.
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I received an ARC of Picture the Dead from the publisher.
