Colin Meloy

"Maybe Archie Coomes has been watching too many horror movies. All of a sudden, the most ordinary things have taken on a sinister edge: a penny on a doormat. A man in a brown suit under a streetlamp. The persistent sound of an ax chopping in the middle of the night. He keeps telling himself that this is Seaham, a sleepy seaside town where nothing ever happens. Or at least nothing did, until his dad's construction company opened up the cliff beneath...

Prue McKeel has returned from the Impassable Wilderness after saving her brother from the evil Dowager Governess. Now her old life of school seems so boring in comparison, and she frequently gets bad grades. Luckily, or unluckily, a new threat is coming against the Wildwood, in which dark assassins have begun to settle old scores, and an industrial tyrant has begun using orphans to exploit the Impassable Wilderness. Prue is called back, and together...

In this house, when everyone stays awake at night, things get very strange, what with Mom on the roof, and Grandma playing cards with the ghost of long-dead Grandpa Paul, and even the dog and cat are acting weird; as the family's doings become more and more bizarre, the narrator starts to wonder--what on earth will happen when morning finally comes.