Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents author Tehlor Kay Mejia's
thrilling adventure based on the Mexican legend of La Llorona.
**
*"A new hero's fantastic and fantastical adventure--her next appearance
can't come soon enough."--KirkusReviews (starred review)**
Space-obsessed 12-year-old Paola Santiago and her two best friends, Emma
and Dante, know the rule: Stay away from the river. It's all they've
heard since a schoolmate of theirs drowned a year ago. Pao is
embarrassed to admit that she has been told to stay away for even longer
than that, because her mother is constantly warning her about La
Llorona, the wailing ghost woman who wanders the banks of the Gila at
night, looking for young people to drag into its murky depths.
Hating her mother's humiliating superstitions and knowing that she and
her friends would never venture into the water, Pao organizes a meet-up
to test out her new telescope near the Gila, since it's the best
stargazing spot. But when Emma never arrives and Pao sees a shadowy
figure in the reeds, it seems like maybe her mom was right. . . .
Pao has always relied on hard science to make sense of the world, but to
find her friend she will have to enter the world of her nightmares,
which includes unnatural mist, mind-bending monsters, and relentless
spirits controlled by a terrifying force that defies both logic and
legend.
**Part ghost story, part family story, and part hero quest, this
exciting and imaginative tale will transport readers to another world.
**
Endorsed by Rick Riordan, author of Percy Jackson and the Olympians,
soon to be a series on Disney+.
