Gallows Hill

(1998)

When Sarah is forced to leave her friends and school behind to move with her mother from California to a small town in Missouri, she wonders if she’ll ever survive it. But when strange things start to happen – Sarah’s visions of the past and future, a dead crow left in her school

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locker, and memories and events reminiscent of the Salem Witch Trials – she begins to wonder if she truly will survive it.

Though a bit implausible, Duncan weaves a story of suspense and mystery that will keep the teen reader interested to the end. Sarah struggles with making friends in a new town, getting her formerly responsive mother to hear her, and understanding this new “power” of divination that she seems to now have. Historical references to the Salem witch trials and reincarnation might spur the reader to delve into other research after reading this book.

ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers (1998)

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Sarah and Rosemary, her mom, have just moved to Pine Crest from California where Sarah had the greatest life - friends, the beach, always something to do. With nothing to do, Sarah is convinced to become a gypsy for a school event from the most popular guy in school, Eric and her soon to be

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step-sister Kyra. What Sarah doesn't know is, Eric has other plans in mind than just a one night event.

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Very good story and very well told. My second Lois Duncan and I think I'm going to make a habit of her for a while. I very much enjoyed the style of her writing as well as the story.

It's not complex or challenging to read but there wasn't a second during which it failed to hold high interest for

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me. I'm very fond of stories that have their origins in the Salem witch trials and speculate on reality and blur the line between what may or may not be true. Or extend the Salem experience across time and portray an effect on the present, many generations after the fact, which is what Gallows Hill does. The history was accurately and unobtrusively interspersed through the story. I found the idea of en masse karmic fulfillment interesting. The effect of the forces that were driving the characters was an excellent justification for the otherwise perhaps maddening actions of a couple of the secondary characters. I had a good emotional connection with the main character and the dialogue and interactions were more believable than in many things that i've read. There was just so much that was good about this. I can't wait to share this.

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Enjoyable YA novel examining reincarnation and the Salem Witch Trials.

"Gallows Hill" is a very well crafted suspense/supernatural thriller. Although I don't usually go for the paranormal books, this one was presented in a way that was, for the most part, believable. It is also supposed to be a young adult book, but I found it entertaining for the not-so-young adults

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as well.

The book starts with Sarah Zoltanne being forced to relocate from Ventura, California, to tiny Pine Crest, Missouri, for her final year of high school. She was forced to follow when her mother Rosemary, widowed for several years, met Ted Thompson at a teacher conference and fell irresistibly in love. Ted was still married, although separated, and had a teenage daughter, Kyra, who was only one year younger than Sarah. The move was particularly rough for Sarah as no child wants to move away from their friends for their last year of high school. Add to that the fact that Pine Crest was a small community where the children had known each other almost from birth, and Sarah and Kyra couldn't stand each other, and you get what was the makings of a pretty miserable senior year for Sarah.

The class president, and anointed golden boy of Pine Crest, Eric Garrett, asks Sarah to help with the senior class fundraiser. They were holding a carnival in the gymnasium and Eric wanted her to be 'Madame Zoltanne,' fortune teller extraordinaire. Sarah tried every excuse she could think of to get out of it especially the fact that she didn't know the first thing about telling fortunes. Eric had a plan though. Kyra had a wireless radio and would feed info on all the people walking in Sarah's tent. Sarah would then put everything together and come up with a fortune. Her mother even had a crystal paperweight (which had a life of its own) that Sarah could use as a crystal ball.

Pressured to try and 'fit in' by Ted and Rosemary, Sarah agrees. The night turned out to be a major success. People were astonished that a stranger knew so many details about them, many she had never even spoken with before. All was going very well until Charlie Gorman walked in. Overweight and uncoordinated, Charlie was the class whipping board and was constantly being teased. When Sarah looked in the crystal ball for Charlie, she saw him being pushed down a flight of stairs. She was so taken aback by this that she feigned a headache and, since the carnival was almost over, decided to call it a night. When Charlie showed up at school the next day with a cast on his arm, things started getting sticky for Sarah.

Eric, having a hidden agenda of his own, pressures Sarah into holding private readings for cash. Kyra has a major crush on Eric and agrees to help. As she holds more fortune readings, Sarah sees things in the crystal ball which ultimately come to fruition. Add to this her nightmares about the Salem Witch trials and her growing friendship with Charlie, who is a proponent of reincarnation, and things start to spiral out of control for Sarah.

I very much enjoyed reading this book and while the plot was not really surprising, it kept the pages turning. None of us know what's on the other side of the grave, so who can say what happens.

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Fast paced. I liked that there were little bits of history concerning the Salem Witch Trials sprinkled throughout. The plot was pretty telegraphed but I enjoyed the story so much that I didn’t mind it being obvious where the plot was going to end up.

4.25/5. 8.5/10. I read this back in the day when I was teaching middle school, and I decided to reread it. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed Lois Duncan's books. 17-yr.-old Sarah poses as a fortuneteller at her new school's Halloween fair and soon discovers that she actually is able to see the

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future in a crystal ball given to her by her mother. The other students brand her a witch, and it's 1600s Salem all over again.

Tragically, Duncan's youngest daughter was murdered in Albuquerque, NM, prompting her to write WHO KILLED MY DAUGHTER? The killer was indicted in 2022, but sadly, Duncan had passed away in 2016, never knowing who killed her daughter. The only horror story she wrote after her daughter's death was this one, GALLOWS HILL.

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