Girl of Lore by Melanie Dale: Hardcover; 368 pages / English

[Aladdin] A girl who’s used to battling the monster of her own mind discovers there’s a sinister evil lurking in her small town in this atmospheric, paranormal upper middle grade novel that “will be a hit for fans of the Wednesday series” (Booklist). Stories of dark magic and even darker creatures have always swirled about high school sophomore Mina Murray’s town of London, Georgia. Mina knows they aren’t true—and are likely perpetuated only to drive the quirky tourist-trap ghost tours of downtown—but that doesn’t stop her from collecting the stories and drawing them in her sketchbook. Something about the possibility of real monsters helps her deal with the monster in her own head: her OCD, which convinces her danger lurks everywhere. To prove to her adoptive parents and therapist that she doesn’t struggle with being social, Mina founds the Lore Club with her best friend, Jackie, and invites other classmates to join her in digging into the odd history of their town. Their investigation turns up more than Mina was expecting, including a pattern of someone going missing every time a sinkhole forms. Then a new sinkhole appears, and Mina finds a body drained of blood and learns a classmate is missing. Unable to hold onto her skepticism, Mina and her fellow club members dive into the tangled web of London secrets…that seems to have Mina herself at the center.