Maybe Archie Coomes has been watching too many horror movies. All of a sudden, the most ordinary things have taken on a sinister edge: a penny on a doormat. An odd man in a brown suit under a streetlamp. The persistent sound of an axe chopping in the middle of the night. He keeps telling himself that this is Seaham, a sleepy seaside town where nothing ever happens. Or at least nothing did, until his dad's construction company opened up the cliff beneath...

"If Mari Feijoo could, she would turn her family's Peak Cubanity down a notch, just enough so that her snooping neighbor and classmate Mykenzye wouldn't have anything to tease her about. That's why this year, there's no way that Mari's joining in on one of the big-gest Feijoo family traditions--burning the New Year's Eve effigy her abuela makes. Only Mari never suspects that failing to toss her effigy in the fire would bring something much worse than...