About the Story
In a South Austin neighborhood, Ray and his family excitedly moves in to a small house standing in the midst of a big, green lawn. Beside their house is a strange, vacant lot where a house apparently once stood, and where a huge wide hole in the back lays mysteriously. As a young boy with a lot of new friends, Ray considers the empty lot as an exciting playground. But the tale behind the lot keeps the boy intrigued and frightened as he learns that the house that was once there was burned down years ago, leaving a girl dead amid the fire. The little girl, as the neighborhood kids say, comes out in the night to regain her life. Determined to validate the authenticity of this tale, Ray daringly and mistakenly challenges the “ghost”, a challenge that he would forever regret. Soon, he becomes haunted by the little girl—who he named as Candle Face—visiting his dreams and leaving hand prints and other signs even when he is awake. Many years later, Ray, now a military man, commits another mistake by telling his wife about his dark past. Along with the tale of the empty lot, he discloses to her the truth about the circumstances of his brother’s suicide and the dreams of torment he and Candle Face bestowed upon him for many years.
Engage in a spine-tingling tale based on true events of the author’s childhood and follow one man’s journey as he revisits his ghostly past, only to bring chaos to his present. Woven with a mind-boggling plot and hair-raising play of words, The Empty Lot Next Door–a book that is part-memoir and part-fiction–will never fail to hook you with every turn of the page.
The Empty Lot Next Door is much more than a ghost story. It’s also a story of the desperation, the pain and the helplessness experienced by children that are bullied. It’s about sibling abuse, and the scars that such abuse leaves on the victim as well as the abuser.
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
