Review: Pitch Green

PITCH GREEN by The Brothers Washburn debuts today from Jolly Fish Press. It’s a YA Horror novel *(NOT my usual genre)* which is what is going to make this review highly unexpected–especially for me. I’ll be interviewing The Brothers and posting the interview here on Monday, but I’m excited about this book and want to give any weekend readers a chance to know about it as soon as possible. Good times!

I just finished reading PITCH GREEN by The Brothers Washburn, and first, before I say anything else about it, I have to say that The Brothers Washburn are never, ever allowed to go camping with me. I’ll bet my last doughnut these guys tell the most scream-inducing campfire stories of all time.

PITCH GREEN is a young adult horror novel about Camm (Camelot Mist Smith) and Cal (California Gold Jones), two high school kids in Trona, a desolate east-California town. Trona has a freaky history of multiple child disappearances over the past 70 years, including Cal’s youngest brother Hughie, who’d been only five at the time. Camm and Cal both feel responsible for Hughie’s disappearance, as they were the oldest kids in the trick-or-treating group when the unfortunate little one was taken from them.

No one knows who is taking the children. No bodies are ever recovered.

Now, years later, another disappearance has occurred, and Camm isn’t about to let this keep happening in her town. An FBI agent comes to investigate and interviews Camm, since she was present for the loss of Hughie. Agent Allen brings Camm and others into the creepy old mansion near where Hughie disappeared, and Camm sees things that make her mind start turning.

Later, Camm brings Cal along and they sneak into the abandoned mansion. What they find there leads them into a battle with a horrible creature with a voracious appetite for humans. The survival of all the children (and adults) in their town depends on Camm and Cal’s victory.

Granted, I’m not a big reader of scary stories, but this was so well written, and with such good dialogue and fun banter, as well as a plot that punches along merrily, I couldn’t help but fly through it in a couple of days. I’d let my own teens read it; in fact, I’d even gladly recommend it to them for a creeptastic time.

But I’m still not going camping with The Brothers Washburn.

Yes, there’s a creepy clock that plays a role in the story!