The Dark Garden

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

A month after being accidentally injured, Thea Chalmers-Goodall, 16,
still suffers from traumatic amnesia. Returning to her family’s home,
a former Anglican manse, Thea does not “know” her parents or her two
younger sisters. Soon she finds herself being “visited” by a former
manse resident, Susannah Lever, who died in 1929 at age 18. Susannah
asks Thea to discover why “he” left her to die. The suspects include
Susannah’s mentally unbalanced father, her fiancé, and her true love,
a Greek laborer. A surprise twist accompanies the solving of
Susannah’s death. A secondary plot has Thea trying to educate her
parents regarding their familial responsibilities. While some
middle-school readers may identify with the put-upon Thea, the book’s
supernatural mystery is more likely to grab their interest. Highly
recommended.