Colleen Mondor Reviews Harvest House by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Harvest House, Cynthia Leitich Smith (Candlewick Press 978-1-5362-1860-2, $19.99, hc, 3294pp) April 2023. Cover by Britt Newton.
A ghost is front and center in Cynthia Leitich Smith’s Harvest House, which begins with Celeste, who haunts the crossroads of a typical Midwestern town. She hovers within the boarded building of what was K.V.’s Chicken Restaurant and Lounge, right across the street from a popular family pub. She watches for the ‘‘Bad Man’’ who follows and harasses, and possibly assaults, young women who work at the pub. It is unclear if the ‘‘Bad Man’’ is alive or some sort of paranormal presence and exactly why he is at the crossroads (and what happened to Celeste), are mysteries that slowly unspool over the course of the novel. The protagonist, high school student Hughie Wolfe, ends up being drawn into the activities at the crossroads due to various friend and family relationships at the pub and his volunteer work to transform the old restaurant into the haunted ‘‘Harvest House’’ as a Halloween fundraiser. As more people are drawn to the old building, and the ‘‘Bad Man’’ becomes more volatile, reports of creepy activity make their way online, and an old ‘‘Indian Maiden’’ legend is resurrected by the pub owner to capitalize on the attention. Through all of this, Celeste watches and intercedes to help others and strange things continue to occur. Everything builds to a conclusion that uncovers her story, its connection to the ‘‘Bad Man,” his identity, and his motivations, which for me were unexpected.
Harvest House strives to work as a ghostly thriller with horror overtones and sometimes it accomplishes this goal, especially when Hughie and his friends seek out the truth behind the ‘‘Maiden’’ story. The book has a lot of to offer, including several strong Native American characters (especially Hughie), and the ending sufficiently answers the questions surrounding Celeste. I was often distracted by details that took me out of the action, however, and by the final pages the mystery seems less significant than everything else that is going on in the narrative. Its success as a paranormal thriller is thus muted, and the book should perhaps be read more as a teen drama that just happens to include a ghost character.
This review and more like it in the June 2023 issue of Locus.
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