SAVING THORNWOOD

A YA novel set in an old asylum and based on an unlikely friendship.

The novel opens in 2022. Anne Blake is 15, and her father, Jackson, has just landed in a mental hospital in a small town in Massachusetts after behaving erratically. It seems he may have some kind of bipolar disorder, and Anne and her mother are distraught yet understanding. The hospital where Jackson is recovering happens to be near the Thornwood Lunatic Asylum, a place he and others want to save as part of the nonprofit Save Thornwood organization. If Thornwood is torn down, the active hospital will go with it, which will force people to travel to Boston for health services. Back in the 1800s, Mary Donovan is 15. Mary and her brother Jamie are sent to Thornwood by their cruel aunt. When Anne encounters what appears to be Mary’s ghost in 2022, Mary asks for help. Here, the narrative upends the typical ghost story. Mary and Anne are very real to each other, and they wind up meeting on a regular basis. Mary even gets to try modern ice cream for some comic relief. But how does one help someone who has been dead for over a century? Rust and Surface’s inventive setup alternates between Mary’s and Anne’s narrations and mixes elements of time travel, mental health awareness, harsh 19th-century mental health “treatments” (such as locking patients in a box for “several hours up to several days”), teenage drama, and the supernatural. It’s a unique mélange that keeps readers guessing about what comes next and in which century it will occur. Occasionally, the dialogue drifts toward the obvious. At one point, Anne observes, “My heart is beating erratically now.” Elsewhere Mary says, “On my way to the graveyard, I try to quell the fluttering in my stomach, but I can’t.” Still, the pages fly by as readers race to learn the fate of Thornwood and all its residents.

A genre-blending, involving, ghostly journey through time.