A deliciously creepy beginning to a projected trilogy. As 16-year-old Seattle native Sarah Parsons arrives at her maternal grandmother's funeral, she learns that her family's historic Maryland home, Amber House, has more than its fair share of secrets, having housed her lineage for more than 10 generations. Sarah and her 5-year-old brother, Sammy, feel an immediate connection with the house, and she discovers that she can feel echoes of the past, seeing visions of her ancestors—both good and bad. Predictably, there is the requisite love triangle between Sarah and Richard, a dashing senator's son, and Jackson, the quiet, down-to-earth son of her late grandmother's nurse, and it is quickly obvious who is the right admirer for her. What is truly novel is the spin that the Reed sisters and Moore, their mother, give the direction of the romance, setting this apart from many of the cardboard triangles found in the genre. Those who think that this is a straightforward ghost story will be sorely mistaken: This is a complex, layered tale that bends time and imagination, demanding to be read with all the lights on. Move over Bella Swan: Sarah is a strong, admirable character who'd rather speak her mind than sulk and sigh over some hot guy. Richly woven, with depth and swift plotting that will leave readers clamoring for the sequels. (Horror/romance. 13 & up)

The ghosts of the past haunt the present in this complex tale of family secrets and lingering loss, first in a planned trilogy from Moore and her daughters. After the death of 15-year-old Sarah-s grandmother, Sarah and her family move into Amber House, a sprawling, centuries-old Maryland mansion that has been in the family ever since it was built. There, Sarah is beset by visions of the past, quickly learning that the house is almost alive, filled with ghosts and memories.

Sarah's visit to her family's Maryland estate, Amber House, for her grandmother's funeral triggers a tangle of plots--two romances, a fabulous party, an imminent divorce, a brother-sister adventure, and a treasure hunt--all tied together by Sarah's gift for ghostly time travel. Eventually, her intervention in the past rearranges the present. Unfortunately, the Southern gothic and it-girl glamour setups pair awkwardly.

There are no ghosts in Amber House, only currents of time and echoes of the lives once lived there. Women in Sarah's family have always seen these echoes and most were labeled crazy. After her grandmother's death, Sarah, her mother, and her five-year-old brother travel to Amber House to ready it for sale, and Sarah finds she, too, is seeing scenes from the past trapped in time. Despite a contemporary Maryland setting, the highly descriptive, lush prose and Sarah's strong, first-person point of view lends an atmospheric, gothic feel to this first book in a planned trilogy, which stands alone quite well. Time shifts, ghostly apparitions, and a mansion that practically becomes another character, with its hedge maze and hundreds of years of hidden family secrets, serve as a backdrop to an extravagant sweet-sixteen masquerade ball and a hunt for lost diamonds. The mother-daughter author team's deft handling of family dynamics, believable characterization, and twist on the now ubiquitous love triangle will leave readers eager for more.