A free house for a year. A new start in a new city. No more avoiding all of those who knew how she spiralled into oblivion on her bedroom floor many months before.

Marigold just wants to forget the past year, and she is still full of guilt for what she put her family through. Her mum winning an artist’s residency including a renovated house in Cedarville, is perfect timing. Marigold can start again. Sure it’s miles away from the small beachside town in California she loved, and their ‘new’ home is surrounded by boarded up, arson scorched and ominous housing, but it is the change her therapist assured would be essential to moving forward.

A developer is determined to return Cedarville to the thriving community it once was, planning to refurbish the houses of the neighbourhood. Marigold’s family are the first on their steps to complete their plan. Marigold figured the neighbourhood would be happy about this, but they are wary, and stand offish. She soon learns it’s not just a mistrust of someone new, but because of a local legend decades old. Marigold’s house is known to be haunted.

Things go missing. Workmen completing jobs around the house leave it at a run seconds after an alarm to signal their day has ended. Doors open on their own and shadows slip under doors and across walls. Once Marigold experiences this and more, she knows she must keep it to herself. She has caused more than enough heartache in her family.

Clashing with her new little step sister Piper has been a daily occurrence, making it easy for Marigold to believe Piper is behind some of the weird stuff going on. But some of it just isn’t possible to be blamed on the ten year old.

With her old friend Tamara’s help, she researches the history of the area. Urban legends aren’t to be found online – only the locals know of its terrible past. Soon that past is threatening the lives of Marigold’s family, and is unable to be avoided any longer.

Author – Tiffany D Jackson

Age – 14+

So easy to read, get caught up in and devoured by! I read my Harper Collins review copy in a day, grabbing chapters when I could. Reading deep into the night, I just had to know what the heck was going on with this house, the complicated blended family and how the history of the area had come to control their lives.

The main character Marigold is a complex mix of guilt, anxiety, cunning and courage. She is flawed in many ways, and readers won’t learn what happened to her and why until well into the novel.

White Smoke cleverly stirs a mixed race newly blended family, a social focus on developers and greed, and an urban legend horror together – resulting in another thrilling read by this author.

Read more reviews on novels by Tiffany D Jackson (Click on the covers)

(2021, Harper Collins NZ, Greed, Blended Family, Horror, Friendship, Action, Animals, Crime, Secret, Dog, Guilt, Secret, Urban Legends, Fear, Power, Property developers, Horror, Thriller, New home, New School, Gardening, tension, Suspense, Truth)