The Year of Lightning

Gr 6–10—Twins Valentine and Malcolm moved to their grandmother's town, Emmett's Bluff, with their father after losing their mother to cancer. Both freshmen are understandably withdrawn but are doing far better than their author father, who stays mostly secluded. Mal is fascinated by a mysterious house across the street with no doors, and the town seems rife with strangeness: disappearances, deaths, and unexplained lightning storms that come and go unpredictably. When Mal investigates the strange house, he is attacked and threatened by a shadowed man and then finds a strange pocket watch on the ground. The tension escalates when the twins and some new friends go for a hike and end up injured in a surprise lightning storm. Val finds the pocket watch in Mal's room and discovers its time-traveling capabilities. But the mysterious man's identity and mission send the group (with some new allies) into a confrontation with extremely powerful forces. The action (and writing) seems slow to start, including characterizations. By the end of the novel, however, Dalton has found his stride, characters are fully realized, and the conclusion will leave readers wanting more. This is the first in a planned trilogy.