Tighter by Adele Griffin

Jamie has a pill problem. It started innocently enough with a track injury. But then her teacher Mr. Ryan (“I’d called him Sean, a couple of times, in the end.”) told her that they had to stop meeting in the back booth of Ruby Tuesdays, so she needed more painkillers for her broken heart. Soon any pill would do—pain pills, her mom’s allergy pills, her dad’s sleeping pills. What kind didn’t matter, as long as they helped Jamie forget Sean, uh, Mr Ryan. Now she’s about to leave home to take a ritzy summer nanny job, hopped up on her parents’ prescriptions and feeling utterly alone. But the island of Little Bly and Isa, the girl she has been hired to care for, are charming and sweet. Maybe Jamie will finally be able to relax and leave the pills behind. Except then she hears the disturbing rumors of Isa’s last nanny, a wild girl named Jessie who died in a plane crash with her boyfriend. Worse yet, she starts SEEING the dead girl and her man on the cliffs near Isa’s house. As the doomed pair draw ever nearer, Jamie begins to lose her already tenuous grip on reality. Are the capsules she can’t seem to stop popping causing her to see the dead lovers? Or are the ghosts real? This hum dinger of a homage to Henry James’ classic The Turn of The Screw will have you breaking into chills even without the air conditioning this summer. Deliciously creepy, with a shocking ending that doesn’t disappoint, this is one hardcover worth toting with you to summer camp. Just don’t be surprised if you lend it to a bunkmate and never see it again. It’s THAT AWESOME. Pair it up with Lauren Myracle’s equally suspenseful Bliss for more good old-fashioned scary summer reading fun.