The Empty Lot Next Door

2010 Reader Views Literary Awards:

• Kids Award for Best Teen/Young Adult - 1st Place
• Teen Book (Ages 12-16) - 1st Place
• Regional (South) - 1st Place
• Parenting/Family/Relationship - Honorable Mention

The award-winning novel, The Empty Lot Next Door,

is available at www.amazon.com as an eBook for only $3.03

and soft cover for $19.99.

Most eBooks are almost the same price as the printed book! Why is the award-winning novel with 49 illustrations by a world-renowned artist for only three bucks while the printed paperback book is $19.99? I’m passing the savings to my readers!

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Print Length: 272 pages

When six-year-old Ray (Arthur’s childhood nickname) and his family moved in next to an empty lot with a mysterious, black hole in the ground, it was only the beginning of Ray’s ghostly torment. At first, Ray and his friends used the lot as a playground of sorts although they stayed far away from the strange, black pit that was said to be the resting place of two children who were killed in a fire. But when Ray goes and dares the ghosts to show themselves, if they exist, he will pay the consequences for years. One of the ghosts, who Ray names “Candle Face” because of her melted features, shows her self and begins to torment Ray. Will Ray be able to rid himself of Candle Face? - Ben Weldon (age 12) for Reader Views

But this story is much more than a ghost story. It is also a story of the desperation, the pain and the helplessness experienced by children whose parents work long hours away from home, necessarily leaving them to fend for themselves against both real and imagined evils. It’s about sibling abuse, and the scars that such abuse leaves on the victim as well as the abuser. And this is the story of the intense struggle of a child to make sense of the world without communicating his fears and thoughts to the adults in his life since he doesn’t want to add to the family’s problems. - Lisa McCurley for Reader Views