Kirkus Reviews!

I am currently out of town on more family urgent business (my summer has been one crazy, heart-pounding emergency after another!) but I just received this from my editor - my first official review from Kirkus!

I have to admit that I am puzzled by the "religious overtones" phrase. Someone will have to point that out to me - I'm either blind to my own words, or I've forgotten! Ha, ha. It's always so interesting to see how readers interpret the story we've written. So now the book I wrote in six weeks last August during Book Armageddon Deadline is out there now and it's nail-biting and butterflies-in-the-stomach-time!

Okay, I've survived the first one - whew. Reviewers tend to be a bit snarky to me, although readers out there by the vast majority overwhelmingly have praised my work. Go figure! (For example, go read some teary-making reviews on Goodreads for The Healing Spell)

Kirkus Reviews – September 1, 2011

CIRCLE OF SECRETS
Author: Little, Kimberley Griffiths
Publisher:Scholastic
Pages: 336
Price ( Hardcover ): $17.99
Publication Date: October 1, 2011
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-0-545-16561-7
Category: Fiction

A steamy Louisiana bayou is the atmospheric backdrop to a tale about a daughter’s estrangement from her mom, the mother’s long-held guilty secret and a restless ghost’s long-sought closure.

When her dad takes a job overseas, 11-year-old Shelby must stay with the mother who walked out on both of them a year earlier. Deeply resentful and wary of her healer mom’s isolated cabin deep in the swamp, Shelby gets drawn into mysterious doings involving strange notes hidden in glass bottles that hang from a tree near home. Tormented at school, Shelby eventually finds a friend in Gwen, a girl who lives alone in the bayou. Ever more mysterious incidents ensue as Shelby slowly unravels the truth about Gwen, her mother’s involvement with the cryptic messages and Mom’s past. The author serves up the setting well, evoking the sights, sounds and smells of the humid, tangled bayou. The gently spooky ghost angle is handled nicely with some religious overtones. A very dramatic climax leads to a sweet, satisfying ending with some surprising twists and with reconciliation occurring for several characters. 

For readers who like their ghost stories more friendly than terrifying.  (Suspense. 9 -12)