The Lightning People Play

“There are kinda heroic teens confronting mysterious symbols from the other side (maybe?). It's absolutely everything you’d want in a YA novel and then some.” –Josh Berk, Edgar Award nominee, author of The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin

Fourteen-year-old Kirby Renton is a gifted theatre kid who wants to fix things: his dads’ marriage, his younger brother’s epilepsy. When ten-year-old Baxter’s seizures start involving visits from “the lightning people,” who descend from the sky and show him strange symbols, Kirby knows he needs to protect his brother, but how? He thinks he’s found the answer when the neurologist advises his family to consider a seizure-alert dog, but the cost is too much for his family to afford.

Determined to raise the money himself, Kirby enlists his best friends and a crew of brilliant teens from his theatre troupe to put on a play in his epic forest of a backyard. At first, the play brings its own pressures as the drama between Kirby’s dads worsens and his fears for his brother intensify. But little does Kirby know of the magic that awaits him and his friends—and the portals that will open—from his daring to make a difference.

From the award-winning author of Alice the Cat comes another intriguing tale set in the fictional town of Weirville, where more strange magic transforms the lives of the inimitable teens who live there.