Content levels
Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Heroine archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Synopsis
***The Conjuring* meets *Sadie* in this queer ghost story, when seventeen-year-old podcaster Dare finds herself in a life-or-death struggle against an evil spirit.** Dare Chase doesn’t believe in ghosts. Privately, she’s a supernatural skeptic. But publicly, she’s keeping her doubts to herself—because she’s the voice of *Attachments*, her brand-new paranormal investigation podcast, and she needs her ghost-loving listeners to tune in. That’s what brings her to Arrington Estate. Thirty years ago, teenager Atheleen Bell drowned in Arrington’s lake, and legend says her spirit haunts the estate. Dare’s more interested in the suspicious circumstances surrounding her death—circumstances that she believes point to a living culprit, not the supernatural. Still, she’s vowed to keep an open mind as she investigates, even if she’s pretty sure what she’ll find. But Arrington is full of surprises. Good ones like Quinn, the cute daughter of the house’s new owner. And baffling ones like the threatening messages left scrawled in paint on Quinn’s walls, the ghastly face that appears behind Dare’s own in the mirror, and the unnatural current that nearly drowns their friend Holly in the lake. As Dare is drawn deeper into the mysteries of Arrington, she’ll have to rethink the boundaries of what is possible. Because if something is lurking in the lake…it might not be willing to let her go.
Is The Girls Are Never Gone appropriate for my child?
Suitable for most readers 14 and up.
Teens will encounter supernatural horror elements including threatening messages, ghostly apparitions, near-drowning, and investigation of a teenager's suspicious death. Features a sapphic romance subplot.
What to know going in
This book has moderate violence, mild sexual content, and mild language. Content notes include death, drowning, and stalking (see the full list above).
Who'll love this
A skeptical teen podcaster investigates a ghost story and finds herself caught between supernatural mystery and romance with the new owner's daughter.