A Room Away from the Wolves

Gr 9 Up— A gorgeously written and evocative ghost tale set in a storied boardinghouse for troubled young women. Seventeen-year-old Sabina Tremper and her mother have always been thick as thieves, embarking on bold adventures, including running away from their first home. However, after Bina gets caught in a series of lies and destructive behavior, their bond becomes strained. When her mother decides to send her away for the summer to ease tensions with her new husband and teenage stepdaughters, Bina feels betrayed. She takes all the cash she can find and steals off into the night. Her plan is to go to New York City and rent a room at Catherine House, just as her mother did the summer before she was born. In this lost-in-time house of secrets, Bina discovers a safe haven to confront her personal demons, some mysterious and powerful talismans from the past, and a kindred spirit whom she can trust. The teen soon realizes that once a young woman takes up residence, she cannot leave Catherine House. Suma is a masterly storyteller, here creating a thoroughly unreliable modern narrator in a deliciously creepy Gothic haunt.