"[T]his novel is extraordinary . . . It is Upton Sinclair's The
Jungle, mixed with H. G. Wells's The Island of Doctor Moreau, set in the
creepiest screwed-up town since 'Salem's Lot . . . [A] major
achievement." -- Adam-Troy Castro, Sci Fi Magazine
Swine Hill was full of the dead. Their ghosts were thickest near the
abandoned downtown, where so many of the town's hopes had died
generation by generation. They lingered in the places that mattered to
them, and people avoided those streets, locked those doors, stopped
going into those rooms . . . They could hurt you. Worse, they could
change you.
Jane is haunted. Since she was a child, she has carried a ghost girl
that feeds on the secrets and fears of everyone around her, whispering
to Jane what they are thinking and feeling, even when she doesn't want
to know. Henry, Jane's brother, is ridden by a genius ghost that forces
him to build strange and dangerous machines. Their mother is possessed
by a lonely spirit that burns anyone she touches. In Swine Hill, a place
of defeat and depletion, there are more dead than living.
When new arrivals begin scoring precious jobs at the last factory in
town, both the living and the dead are furious. This insult on the end
of a long economic decline sparks a conflagration. Buffeted by rage on
all sides, Jane must find a way to save her haunted family and escape
the town before it kills them.
