Cryer's Cross

Kendall loves her life in small town Cryer¹s Cross, Montana, but she also longs for something more. She knows the chances of going to school in New York are small, but she's not the type to give up easily. Even though it will mean leaving Nico, the world's sweetest boyfriend, behind. But when Cryer's Cross is rocked by unspeakable tragedy, Kendall shoves her dreams aside and focuses on just one goal: help find her missing friends. Even if it means spending time with the one boy she shouldn't get close to... the one boy who makes her question everything she feels for Nico. Determined to help and to stay true to the boy she's always loved, Kendall keeps up the search--and stumbles upon some frightening local history. She knows she can't stop digging, but Kendall is about to find out just how far the townspeople will go to keep their secrets buried....

From School Library Journal

Gr 7-10-This horror/suspense offering never really gets a full shiver going, even though McMann infuses her story with a 50-year-old wooden school desk and a menacing collective of tortured souls possessing it. Even when the desk-spirits seem to explain the bizarre disappearances of two of several high school students in the tiny Montana town of Cryer's Cross, the intended creep factor intended falls short. What doesn't fall short is the solid characterization of Kendall, a senior who tries to keep control of her OCD even after Nico, her best boy-friend since infancy, goes missing. Weird carved messages show up on the desk he was using before his disappearance, and Kendall thinks she hears his voice when she sits at it. Luckily, she has the distractions of soccer, a new boy from Arizona who slowly warms up to her, and her family's potato harvest to keep her from obsessing about Nico's loss and the eerie desk-until they just become too compelling. Then she, too, faces danger from the trapped entities that inhabit the desk. The mystery of why and how the desk is possessed and urging teenagers to harm themselves is given a quick and illogical gloss over when explained. Discerning readers are unlikely to suspend disbelief, but they may find character and setting help redeem the book.-Suzanne Gordon, Lanier High School, Sugar Hill, GA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

Kendall is a senior in a one-room high school where last spring Tiffany, a freshman, disappeared. Now it is the start of a new year, and Kendall�s boyfriend, Nico�the only one who truly understood Kendall�s OCD� has gone missing, too. While compelled to straighten the desks before class one morning, Kendall discovers that Nico�s desk was also Tiffany�s desk. This seems like more than a coincidence, but Kendall is afraid that people will think she is crazy. The town�s dark past is a well-kept secret, and though she doesn�t want to admit it, Kendall will need the help of brooding newcomer Jacian if she is going to find Nico. Kendall is a unique character, and the details of her OCD compulsions are well drawn. Haunting passages from another world, which provide just enough detail to intrigue and disturb readers, are intertwined with Kendall�s story. Part mystery, part ghost story, and part romance, this book has enough to satisfy a variety of readers and will find popularity with McMann�s established fan base and new readers alike. Grades 8-12. --Shauna Yusko

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Cryer’s Cross ONE Everything changes when Tiffany Quinn disappears. Of the 212 residents of Cryer’s Cross, Montana, 178 join Sheriff Greenwood in a search that lasts several days from sunup to after dark. School is closed, all the students taking part, searching roads and farms, trudging through pastures of cattle and horses, through sections of newly planted potatoes, barley, wheat. Up to the foothills and back along the woods. They travel in groups of two or three, some nervous, some crying, some resolute. Shouting to the other groups now and then so nobody else goes missing—cell phones aren’t much good out here. Cryer’s Cross is a dead spot. After five days there is still no trace of Tiffany Quinn. She is gone, impossibly. Impossibly, because to imagine that there has been foul play here in the humble town of Cryer’s Cross is laughable, and to imagine that sweet ninth-grade bookworm running away, going off on her own . . . It’s all so impossible. But gone she is. Still, they search. Kendall Fletcher flinches and casts regular glances behind her out of habit. Scared about the younger girl’s disappearance, true, but also unsettled by this shake-up in her schedule. The final week of her junior year canceled—everything left unfinished, open ended. Her whole routine is off. She walks the hundreds of acres of her parents’ farm and beyond into the woods, wearily counting her steps through the potatoes and grain fields and trees. Counting, always counting something. Her best friend, Nico Cruz, walks next to her. Boyfriend, he’d say. But boyfriend means commitment, and commitments that she can’t keep tend to make Kendall feel prickly. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s run.” She takes off through the field, and Nico follows. They pass an imaginary soccer ball between the rows, occasionally yelling out “Tiffany!” Once, after they cross over to Nico’s family’s land, they see a big brown lump where the barley field meets the gravel road, but it’s not Tiffany. Just a road-killed deer. She’s not here. She’s not anywhere. They take a break under a tree at the edge of the farm as rain starts to fall. Kendall stares and counts the drops as they hit the gray dirt, faster and faster. Nico talks, but Kendall isn’t listening. She needs to get to a hundred drops before she can allow herself to stop. Eventually the search ends. Nothing more can be done locally except by professionals now. It’s prime planting season. Farmers have chores, and students do too. Plus jobs, if they work in town or for one of the farmers or ranchers. Life has to go on. It’s a long, hot summer full of hard work for Kendall. For everyone. After a month or two, people stop talking about Tiffany Quinn.

About the Author

Lisa McMann lives in Arizona. She is married to fellow writer and musician, Matt McMann, and they have two adult children. Her son is an artist named Kilian McMann and her daughter is an actor, Kennedy McMann. Lisa is the New York Times bestselling author of over two dozen books for young adults and children. So far she has written in genres including paranormal, realistic, dystopian, and fantasy. Some of her most well-known books are The Unwanteds series for middle grade readers and the Wake trilogy for young adults. Check out Lisa's website at LisaMcMann.com, learn more about The Unwanteds Series at UnwantedsSeries.com, and be sure to say hi on Instagram or Twitter (@Lisa_McMann), or Facebook (Facebook.com/McMannFan).

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