Gallows Hill

Gallows Hill (Laurel-Leaf Books). Grade 7-9. Sarah, 17, has just moved from California to a small Missouri town so that her mother can be near her new boyfriend. The teen reluctantly agrees when handsome, popular Eric asks her to run a fortune-telling booth at the school's Halloween carnival. After her impressive performance, he convinces her to continue telling fortunes off campus. Then Sarah becomes unnerved by the startling visions about other students that she sees in the antique paperweight/crystal ball and begins to have terrifying nightmares. Her classmates, not knowing how to deal with Sarah's unsettling information, label her a witch. Her only friend is another misfit, Charlie. Because both of them are having dreams about the Salem witchcraft trials, Charlie develops a theory that they are living out the results of what happened in past lives in Salem; that many of Sarah's classmates may be former victims of her false accusations seeking revenge. Parts of the plot stretch credibility. That so many students could so easily become convinced that Sarah is a witch seems highly unlikely. Equally hard to accept is the idea that Sarah's mother has been drawn to the town so that Sarah can fulfill some sort of karmic destiny. Charlie's belief in reincarnation causes him to sound like a textbook on Eastern religions. Adult characters merely serve to move the story along.

Author: Lois Duncan

Download "Gallows Hill" from Google Books