Secrets of the Building
Grief can gut you completely. Anyone who has experienced trauma that’s resulted from the loss of someone close to them knows how deeply true this is. Some find their memories of the event so unbearable that they’d do anything to escape them. What if there was a way to do just that, not for just a while, but permanently? If it was you and you were suffering so intensely, what would you be willing to sacrifice for that release?
That’s the premise behind the YA suspense novel Secrets of the Building by Emma Beazley. It’s the story of two teens, Mark and Josie, who find themselves the subjects of a dark experiment they can only begin to comprehend.
When Mark’s brother Tommy goes missing after a fight with his parents, Mark goes off searching for him. He feels drawn to the woods near his home — the one place he and his brother have been forbidden from going. Once inside, he loses his way and meets a strange girl named May who seems to know things she couldn’t possibly know, like why Mark is searching the woods. She tells him that she, too, has lost someone close to her; her sister died in a house fire two years ago. Suddenly Mark blacks out, and when he comes to, he’s in a hospital bed. The first thing he thinks of is Tommy. Did he come home? Did someone find him? His parents, however, won’t answer any of his questions.
Mark then finds himself waking up again in another room; this time, it appears he has a roommate — a girl named Josie, who is as equally baffled as he is about how she got there. They soon realize they are locked in and something about the hospital seems very off. Comparing notes, they find they have a lot in common, and in ways that raise their suspicions. While they can’t recall why they’re there, they are certain about one thing — they are in some kind of danger, and they must get out. Together, they escape the building and set out to find help.
ON THE RUN ACROSS STATE LINES
The building they flee from is out in the middle of nowhere and it’s days before they can flag down a passing car. Enter Austin, a nomadic 20-something with a red Jeep and a lot of time on his hands. He doesn’t realize it yet, but he’s found the adventure of a lifetime when he picks up the two shivering teens by the side of the road. Very soon they will be zig-zagging across the country with the mysterious hospital doctors in hot pursuit. And all along the way, Mark and Josie will need to keep their wits around them to figure out why they are being pursued. If only they could remember.
Ever since he woke up in the hospital, Mark has been plagued by bizarre, vivid dreams and visits from the strange girl, May, who he soon realizes can only be seen by him. His mind seems to be trying to work through something, and bit by bit he finds clues in his nightmares. But there is only one way to get to the truth — return to the building and find out what it was they ran away from. What they uncover is a chilling, clandestine experiment that has far-reaching ambitions and implications — and a much larger scope than they could ever have imagined.
Fans of Stranger Things, season one, will find a lot to enjoy in this book — an experimental institution run by a greedy scientist, a shadowy limbo world located deep within the mind, a close-knit group trying to solve a complex and shifting paranormal puzzle. Fierce loyalties and jeopardizing betrayals. Danger and discovery. … And also romance and heartache. As they work together to figure out what’s going on, Mark’s feelings toward Josie change and grow, but he has a long way to go before he can win her heart.
As characters, Mark and Josie feel authentic, full of the complicated emotions and social awkwardness that come with being a teen. Perhaps this is because the author, Emma Beazley, is also a teen — with enough insight into herself and others to pull together a debut that’s beyond what most teen writers are capable of. If Secrets of the Building is any indication, it will be exciting to see what she tackles next and how her work will evolve in the years to come.
