Ghost Projekt by Joe Harris

Will Haley, an American weapons inspector and Anya Romanova, a Russian detective are called in to examine an abandon Siberian research facility where something, possibly a weapon of mass destruction, has been stolen.  After the weapon disappears, people who once worked on the project during the Cold War start turning up dead.  There's nothing to show how they died, aside from a strange red rash.  Will and Anya must figure out what's going on as fast as they can, and what was really happening behind the Dosvidanya Projekt.

This was a bit dark, and definitely for an older, more mature audience.  The weapon that is unleashed goes around killing lots of people, which are graphically depicted.  There's also disturbing images because of what happened to a little girl named Natalia.  I found that more upsetting then the people dying.

This is the first in the series, and it mostly felt like a set-up for the rest of the series.  It gets the story moving, but not a whole lot happens in terms of plot, and I'm still not totally clear what exactly Natalia is, and how it seems she can both kill and heal people.  I'm interested to see where this goes though.

I would recommend this for grade 11 and up.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Julia and Valentina Poole are twins and completely inseparable.  Their lives are forever changed when they receive a letter from their mother's twin, Elsepth, who they've never met.  Elsepth has died, and has left her London apartment to the twins, under the conditions that they live in it for a year before they sell it, and that their parents never set foot inside it.  Julia and Valentina settle into the apartment, and find that Elsepth is perhaps not as gone as they thought. 

This was way weird.  I didn't realize it was going to be a ghost story, so when Elsepth finds herself as a ghost floating around her flat I was surprised.  I was interested though, I wanted to know what the secret Elsepth was keeping and what the Poole twins' deal was.

Those girls were odd.  They're 21, and they still sleep in the same bed and dress alike.  They do everything together and have never been apart.  They went off to college, but Julia didn't like it and dropped out, so Valentina did too.  And then this happens twice more until Julia decided that they just weren't right for college.  Valentina clearly wanted to finish school, but she couldn't say no to Julia.

They had an interesting dynamic.  Julia was the physically stronger of the two.  She was bossy and commanding and never got sick.  Valentina was delicate and didn't like to fight and let Julia make all the decisions.  However, it was really Julia who couldn't bare to think of being apart from Valentina.  Valentina comes to realize she wants to go do her own thing; she wants to go back to school.  She wants to be a fashion designer.  But she can't figure out how to leave Julia.

Spoilers ahead.

The House of Dead Maids by Clare B. Dunkle

Tabby is taken from Ma Hutton's knitting school to serve as a maid at Seldom House, so she thinks. Upon her arrival, she finds there is little for her to do in the big, empty house. She has actually been chosen as a companion to a half wild child with no name. Things are very strange at Seldom House, and become even stranger as Tabby is haunted by the ghost of the maids before her. What happened to them? Is the same fate in store for Tabby?