Help for the Haunted - (P.S.) by John Searles (Paperback)

About the Book

John Searles s Help for the Haunted is an unforgettable story of a most unusual family, their deep secrets, their harrowing tragedy, and ultimately, a daughter s discovery of a dark and unexpected mystery.

Sylvie Mason s parents have an unusual occupation helping haunted souls find peace. After receiving a strange phone call one winter s night, they leave the house and are later murdered in an old church in a horrifying act of violence.

A year later, Sylvie is living in the care of her older sister, who may be to blame for what happened to their parents. Now, the inquisitive teenager pursues the mystery, moving closer to the knowledge of what occurred that night and to the truth about her family s past and the secrets that have haunted them for years.

Capturing the vivid eeriness of Stephen King s works with the compelling quirkiness of John Irving s beloved novels, Help for the Haunted is that rare story that brings to life a richly imagined and wholly original world."

Book Synopsis

"Part ghost story, part coming-of-age story, John Searles' Help for the Haunted is a dazzling, dark portrait of a troubled family beset by the supernatural. Searles ratchets up the tension with every passing chapter, and delivers authentic and well-earned scares--all written through the lens of a lonely teenager searching for answers. The result is a novel both frightening and beautiful."
-- Gillian Flynn

An unforgettable story of a most unusual family, their deep secrets, their harrowing tragedy, and ultimately, a daughter's discovery of a dark and unexpected mystery.

Sylvie Mason's parents have an unusual occupation--helping "haunted souls" find peace. After receiving a strange phone call one winter's night, they leave the house and are later murdered in an old church in a horrifying act of violence.

A year later, Sylvie is living in the care of her older sister, who may be to blame for what happened to their parents. Now, the inquisitive teenager pursues the mystery, moving closer to the knowledge of what occurred that night--and to the truth about her family's past and the secrets that have haunted them for years.

Capturing the vivid eeriness of Stephen King's works with the compelling quirkiness of John Irving's beloved novels, Help for the Haunted is that rare story that brings to life a richly imagined and wholly original world. From the very first page, it takes readers on a captivating journey, told in the heartbreakingly resonant voice of a young heroine who is determined to discover the truth about her family and what went wrong one snowy winter night.

From the Back Cover

A Boston Globe Best Crime Novel of the Year
An Entertainment Weekly Top Ten "Must List"
Winner of the American Library Association's Alex Award
Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist starred reviews

Sylvie Mason's parents have an unusual occupation: helping "haunted souls" find peace. After receiving a phone call late one snowy night, they are lured to an old church on the outskirts of town, where Sylvie falls asleep in the car and is awoken by the sound of gunshots.

Orphaned on that night, Sylvie comes under the care of her reckless, distant older sister, still living in the rambling Tudor house that guards the relics of her parents' past. As she pursues the mystery of their deaths, Sylvie's story weaves back and forth between the time leading up to the murders and the months following, uncovering the truth of what happened that night--and the secrets that have haunted her family for years.

Review Quotes

"Wonderful...A coming of age tale that is poignant and touching...and will scare the living hell out of you. I loved every page of this novel: I loved the sisters and the story and the page-turning mystery. I just may never go downstairs into my basement again." - Chris Bohjalian, bestselling author of Midwives and The Light in the Ruins
"Heart-thumping...nearly impossible to put down." - Cleveland Plain Dealer
"John Searles wrapped a ghost story inside a mystery, and the result is a worthy thriller...HELP FOR THE HAUNTED's alternating chapters are cleverly split in time to reveal what came before and after a deadly tragedy at the heart of this captivating story." - Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Searles is a top-notch storyteller. He sets a mood of unease that builds up to a sense of dread... It's hard to stop reading." - Charlotte Observer
"The perfect Halloween read for those with a taste for haunted basements, creepy always-smiling dolls, and weirdly dysfunctional families...Searles brings the torture of adolescence, the scourge of notoriety, and the pain of being young and different vividly to the page." - Boston Globe
"[Searles'] new release about a young girl whose parents are self-proclaimed 'saviors of haunted souls, ' his his most engrossing yet." - People
"An expertly-wrought, coming-of-age story with a healthy dose of creepiness." - Amazon.com, "Best Book of the Month"
"The best scary stories unfold on the porous boundary between the supernatural and the ordinary. The moving and elegantly constructed Help for the Haunted by John Searles places a tense family drama in the context of a series of exorcisms...Searles craftily uses the conventions of the horror novel to cast light on the troubled dynamics at work inside a family, as well as the pressures from the outside world. His novel is both a suspenseful page turner and a provocative look at what it means to be haunted." - Columbus Dispatch
"[Searles] has a distinct talent for fashioning chilling, thrilling novels." - New York Daily News
"Captivating...Involves both classic horror elements (a malevolent rag doll, a stolen diary, a hatchet, a scary basement) and contemporary ones (a prescription for Vicodin). Searles controls the plot with a sure hand and wraps up the situation on Butter Lane in a satisfying and believable way. The darkest secrets in this book are not paranormal at all, but chillingly ordinary." - New York Newsday
"[Searles] has crafted a strange, spooky world that is absolutely believable. Sweet, precocious, desperate Sylvie is a memorable young striver in the tradition of Scout Finch, and HELP FOR THE HAUNTED is an exceptional piece of storytelling." - Washington Post
"Readers of this unsettling coming-of-age story from Searles may feel the need to whistle past the graveyard at the end. Nothing has been the same for Sylvie Mason since the night her parents went to a deserted church...Her current existence, her parents' 'gifts' and vagabond lifestyle, and strange goings-on in the Masons' basement unfold in nonlinear fashion, keeping the reader on the edge while Sylvie bravely uncovers her family's many secrets." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Readers of this unsettling coming-of-age story from Searles may feel the need to whistle past the graveyard at the end...[Events] unfold in nonlinear fashion, keeping the reader on edge while Sylvie bravely uncovers her family's many secrets." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A masterful genre mash-up that's part paranormal thriller, part coming-of-age story, part crime fiction, Searles' eerie novel about a young girl uncovering the mystery of her parents' murders builds to a stunning and poignant conclusion." - Entertainment Weekly