The Summoning by Kelley Armstong

After years of frequent moves following her mother’s death, Chloe Saunders’s life is finally settling down. She is attending art school, pursuing her dreams of becoming a director, making friends, meeting boys. Her biggest concern is that she’s not developing as fast as her friends are. But when puberty does hit, it brings more than hormone surges. Chloe starts seeing ghosts–everywhere, demanding her attention. After she suffers a breakdown, her devoted aunt Lauren gets her into a highly recommended group home.

At first, Lyle House seems a pretty okay place, except for Chloe’s small problem of fearing she might be facing a lifetime of mental illness. But as she gradually gets to know the other kids at the home–charming Simon and his ominous, unsmiling brother Derek, obnoxious Tori, and Rae, who has a “thing” for fire–Chloe begins to realize that there is something that binds them all together, and it isn’t your usual “problem kid” behaviour. And together they discover that Lyle House is not your usual group home either…



I believe I picked up this book at a Borders while I was in Maryland, though, it had been on my list of books to read since it was first published. I put it off only because I, stupidly, thought it'd be too boring for me, there wouldn't really be a lot of action, nor would there be any real relationship between the characters. Now whenever I think back on those thoughts, I want to smack myself right on the forehead. I was dead wrong; no pun intended. This book was FULL of action. I'm not sure if this is just me, but, the story hit right on my own fears of things like ghosts, being locked away, darkness, being in closed in areas, etc. One scene really frightened me, which, I'm not going to give away. But, about that scene, it was so realistic. When most stories that have their protagonist "scared to death" they don't really do the general things that a real-life person would. When Chloe was scared in one of the scenes she literally wet her pants; something a real-life person would do in that type of situation. I also want to add that I have a tendancy to try and guess the ending and normally I'm right. This was one of those book had me so wrong I had to re-read the ending. As soon as I finished the last word I raced into my sister's room to beg her to take me to my nearest Books-A-Million so I could get "The Awakening." I now have it and I'll definitely be starting it soon.




Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: March 2009
Age Range: 12
Pages: 416
First in Darkest Powers Series

5/5