Grave Mistakes - (Dead Family) by Kitty Curran (Hardcover)

About the Book

Twelve-year-old Molly and her poltergeist twin brother Marty must solve a mystery to protect their family.

Book Synopsis

Middle school is hard--add a deadly embarrassing family and a huge secret, and it's nearly impossible. An Addams-esque family faces a perilous plot in this energetic, ghostly middle grade mystery.

Molly Dade has big problems. She's got an important violin audition coming up, she's been paired with her nemesis for a group project, and she's struggling to hide a life-or-death secret from...well, from everyone. It wasn't long ago that the Dades were just a regular Maine family living in their reportedly haunted house in the local cemetery. But then Molly's mom and twin brother Marty were killed in a freak accident. And Molly, her older brother Timothy, and her father became the town's newest bereaved family.

Except Mom and Marty are still very much present. No one knows why, but Mom is now a ghost and Marty is a poltergeist. Oh, and there's also Molly's younger sister Dyandra, who is a zombie.

Keeping all this supernatural stuff a secret from everyone is hard work, especially when the dead (undead?) members of the family still want to participate in things like the Parent Teacher Association meetings or come to the (very public, very potentially embarrassing) school concert.

When Dad's new cemetery assistant seems to know the Dade family secret, Molly and Marty worry about the future of their family. And when Marty begins to regain his memories of the explosion that killed him and Mom, the twins realize that the situation might be even more grave than they thought. Someone might be after the Dade family--but who? And why?

Review Quotes

A middle schooler discovers that her unusual family is the least of her problems. Readers will have no problem understanding why Molly Dade is stressed--being as her spacey mom is dead but still present as a disembodied voice; Marty, her likewise dead twin brother, is hanging around as a prank-loving poltergeist; and Dyandra, her adopted little sister, is a zombie who craves brains. Keeping these facts from becoming general knowledge has turned both school and her lifelong friendship with classmate Grace into nightmares. Oh, and Molly has actual nightmares, too, along with other symptoms suggesting that she's been cursed by a witch. Emerging hints that the explosion that (more or less) killed her mother and brother a year ago wasn't accidental steer the plotline to a melodramatic climax, but overall, debut author Curran keeps the tone light by, for instance, replacing Molly's supposed grief with irritation at the cloying sympathy she has to endure in public to keep up pretenses. Curran also surrounds her with a secondary cast that, to Molly's amazement and relief, takes her family's differences calmly in stride once they're revealed. By the end, some villains remain at large for future rematches, but everyone else, even ex-nemesis classmate Cara, is on Molly's side--and Molly herself is not quite as "normal" as she had supposed. Most characters seem to be White; one of Molly's grandmothers was Chinese. Addams Family lite for readers seeking spooky fun grounded in relationships. (Fantasy. 9-13)- Kirkus (June 1, 2023)

About the Author

Kitty Curran (http: //www.kittycurran.com) is the co-author of two adult books published by Quirk (For Your Consideration: Keanu Reaves and My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel), as well as a YA time-travel fantasy graphic novel forthcoming from Boom! Studios. Kitty has also worked as a designer and had her work featured in Time, Upworthy, CNN, HelloGiggles, CBS, and The Huffington Post. She is a London native who is now based in Maine. Grave Mistakes is her middle grade debut.