FIELD OF
SCREAMS
PARANORMAL ENTHUSIAST REBECCA GRAFF isn’t happy about being dragged to Iowa to spend the summer with family she barely knows. But when she tracks a ghostly presence to a nearby abandoned farmhouse, she starts to think the summer won’t be a total lost cause...
The trouble is no one believes her. Then Rebecca finds a note stashed in a comic belonging to her late father—a note that proves the same ghost haunted him when he was twelve. Suddenly she feels a connection to the dad she pretends not to miss, and she becomes determined to uncover the story behind the haunting. But the more Rebecca discovers, the scarier the ghost becomes. Soon she is in a race to piece together the puzzle and recover a family legacy before it is lost forever—and a horrible tragedy repeats itself.
Publisher: Delacorte Press/Random House Children's Books (August 1, 2023)
ISBN: 9780593570005 | Middle Grade (8-12)
praise
* A Junior Library Guild Gold Se
** A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection!
“Chilling, thrilling, and full of heart! Field of Screams is a perfect book for young readers who like their scares accompanied by family mystery, abandoned houses, and the best maybe-a-ghost cat ever."
-Kiersten White, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sinister Summer series
“Full of nail-biting scenes, mysterious atmosphere, and clever scares . . . I couldn’t put it down!”
-Lindsay Currie, New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Locked Rooms
“Haunted barn? Creepy cat? Yes please! But Field of Screams is so much more than a ghost story. It has as much heart as it does hauntings, and by the time I turned the last page, I found myself not wanting to say goodbye to these characters."
-Lorien Lawrence, author of the Fright Watch series
'Field of Screams is a gripping mystery wrapped inside a ghost story and rooted in realistic characters dealing with honest emotions. Set among shadowy rows of corn and lonesome farmland, Parris’s tale whispers forth a crackling, heat-choked atmosphere, and tension materializes like static before the most wicked of summer storms. My advice: sip an icy glass of lemonade while devouring this morsel of a spooky tale. Goosebumps guaranteed!“
—Dan Poblocki, author of Tales to Keep You Up at Night
"(An) atmospheric debut."
-Publisher's Weekly
"A spooky yet fun middle-grade story."
-Culturess
Inspiration
In summer 2011, I visited my dad and stepmom near Clear Lake, Iowa. One day I went on a bike ride around the lake, through some woods, and down a cornfield-lined country road. Then I spied an intriguing sight - nestled under tall trees at the end of a long, grassy driveway sat an abandoned farmhouse. I immediately jumped off my bike, hopped the fence and took some pictures. I thought, “Who lived here? What happened here? I should write a ghost story about this place.” Though the house in my book ended up a bit different than the one I stumbled across all those years ago, that encounter is what inspired Field of Screams. Below are some photos I took that day.