Whispering Pines (Lang)

Stranger Things meets The X-Files in this eerie, heart-pounding middle grade adventure about a young boy and girl who must protect their small town from otherworldly forces threatening to destroy it. Rae's father vanished without a trace-and Rae knows what happened to him. But no one believes her when she says that her father didn't run off, that he was actually taken. Now, a year of therapy later, Rae's mother decides they need a fresh start, and so they move to a new town in the hope that life can return to normal. The problem is, there is nothing normal about the town of Whispering Pines. No one knows this better than Caden. He's lived in Whispering Pines his entire life, and he's seen more than his fair share of weird-starting with his own family, as the town is the perfect home base for his mother's ghost hunting business. When several kids go missing and then show up like zombies with their eyes removed, many locals brush it off. Just another day in Whispering Pines. But Caden has a dark secret, one that may explain why someone is stealing eyes. And Rae, who knows how it feels to not be believed, may be just the person Caden needs to help him put things right.

Caden's brother Aiden is many things: clever, powerful, vindictive. Unforgiving. And now, he's also mysteriously free from the hellish dimensional prison that Caden had trapped him in. Caden is sure that Aiden is out for revenge, but since his parents refuse to see the danger when it comes to his brother, he'll have to find a way to survive on his own. Meanwhile, Rae, freed from the threat of the eye-snatching, monstrous Unseeing, has once again turned all her focus toward finding her missing father. She believes the town's shady alternative energy company, Green On!, might have the information she seeks, so she joins their internship program to get answers. Unfortunately, this means sacrificing her friendship with Caden, who wants nothing to do with Green On! or anyone associated with it. When a special assignment from Rae's internship leads her to uncover an infestation of giant, flesh-eating centipedes that may be alien in nature, she needs to convince Caden to help her get rid of them. The two friends must learn to work together again, because this time, it's not just Whispering Pines's fate that hangs in the balance, but the world's.

Eyeless horrors. Giant, flesh-eating bugs. Despite everything Whispering Pines has thrown at her, Rae has never given up searching for her missing father. But when she discovers a surprising connection between his disappearance and Green On!, the shady alternative energy company that runs her town, she'll be forced to confront a monster more dangerous than anything she's ever faced before. Meanwhile, now that Caden's vindictive older brother is gone, it's up to him to uphold the family business and ensure that the evil in the Other Place never breaks free. But when a mangled body is discovered in his backyard, he realizes that he can't protect Whispering Pines from the monstrous creatures of the Other Place-because they're already here. The only way for both Caden and Rae to save the people of Whispering Pines is to embark on a mission deep into the heart of the Other Place. There, Caden will have to come to terms with the truth of his family's legacy and learn how to harness his full power. If he fails, all the horrors of the Other Place will descend on Whispering Pines, and that's a threat that the town-and the world-cannot survive.

After more than a year of searching, Rae finally has a lead on her missing father: he's being kept prisoner by the shady alternative energy company, Green On!. Now all she has to do is rescue him-even though that means battling her way through the alien-infested Watchful Woods to reach him. But her father isn't the only secret they have locked up, and if Rae wants to free him, she'll first have to make a deal with someone who has betrayed her in the past. With the Other Place gone and all the aliens sealed within the Watchful Woods, Caden believes his family's worries are over at last-until he discovers that the magical seal keeping the creatures contained is near collapse. If they manage to escape the woods, there will be no stopping them from ravaging the town and the world beyond. Caden only has one choice: he must find a way to destroy the creatures once and for all. Even if it means destroying everything in the woods. Including his friends. With the fate of Whispering Pines hanging by a thread, it's a desperate race against the clock as Rae and Caden fight to save the people they love-and the strange, wonderful town they call home.