Award-winning Author, Inspired by Volunteer Work
[LOCUST GROVE, Virginia] – Award-winning local author Jane Haltmaier always loved writing, but it wasn’t until after retiring from a thirty-year career as an economist at the Federal Reserve Board that she finally had the time to pursue it fully. Inspired by her volunteer work at a local residential village for abused children—where she led book clubs for teenage girls—Jane was moved to write a young adult novel of her own.
5-star rating on Reader Views
The Secret of Spirit Lake by Jane Haltmaier is a coming-of-age mystery that offers teen and young adult readers exciting secrets and chilling revelations. Through the alternating perspective, this novel highlights the challenges that the girls face—Amy’s difficulties of being the new girl in Spirit Lake and Penny’s fight for survival as she finds herself in a dire situation. The addition of a ghostly form adds another layer of intrigue as it becomes the proverbial glue that bonds the girls. Calling all amateur investigators! Readers who adore digging for information and piecing together clues will be immersed in this thrilling novel, from ghostly encounters to uncovering lost letters to DNA results. Haltmaier leaves no stone unturned in revealing the mystery of Spirit Lake. Amy and her new friends are determined to help Sally uncover what happened to Penny and the children she nannied, and they go to great depths to connect all the dots. I was rooting for them every step of the way! Readers will be impressed by the level of character evolution. Penny, in particular, goes through an earth-shattering transition when she is plucked from her comfortable life, suffers a tragedy, and then fights for survival in horrific conditions. The author masterfully illustrates the tremendous role hope plays in self-preservation, and readers will be inspired by the young woman’s strength and resourcefulness when all the odds are stacked against her. As we get closer to spooky season, Jane Haltmaier’s The Secret of Spirit Lake is the perfect teen/YA mystery to cozy up with. Expertly paced with an intriguing premise, you may find it difficult to tear yourself away from this novel!
Reader's Choice Gold Winner in Teen Category
The Secret of Spirit Lake, by Jane Haltmaier, is a heartfelt and engaging young adult mystery that blends themes of friendship, resilience, and the search for belonging.
The story centers on Amy, a fourteen year old girl uprooted from her life in upstate New York to a lakeside town in North Carolina. Struggling with loneliness and anxiety about fitting in, Amy soon discovers that her new home is shrouded in mystery, haunted by the legend of a girl named Penny who disappeared decades earlier. As Amy befriends local teens Maggie, Marissa, and Sam, the group embarks on a quest to uncover the truth behind the ghostly happenings at Spirit Lake. Their investigation leads them through old newspaper archives, family secrets, and supernatural encounters.
Haltmaier’s writing excels in creating authentic, relatable characters. Amy’s emotional journey, her initial resistance to change, her gradual acceptance, and her growth in confidence, will resonate with young readers facing their own transitions. The friendships depicted are nuanced and supportive, providing a positive model for teamwork and empathy. The dual narrative, alternating between Amy’s present and Penny’s harrowing past, adds depth and suspense, keeping readers invested in both timelines.
The novel also addresses serious topics such as child abuse and neglect with sensitivity, offering hope and agency through the characters’ actions. The ghost story element is handled with a light touch, serving as both a metaphor for unresolved trauma and a catalyst for the characters’ personal growth.
Overall, this is a beautifully crafted, and emotionally rich mystery novel that intertwines a modern teen's journey of friendship and self-discovery with a haunting historical mystery.
Star rating: 5 Stars
Summary: A heartfelt coming-of-age mystery where a lonely teen, finds friendship and courage while unravelling the ghostly secrets of her new lakeside home.
Second Place Award on Bookfest
The Secret of Spirit Lake earned a 2nd place award in the Fall 2025 Bookfest contest and was selected as one of 12 Outstanding Reads from the Fall Bookfest Awards. The titles on this list represent some of the most compelling winners.
literary Titan Review with 5 star rating
In The Secret of Spirit Lake, a young adult mystery with a gentle paranormal twist, we follow fourteen-year-old Amy, yanked away from her old life and dropped into a big yellow Victorian on a quiet Virginia lake. She ends up in the tower bedroom, where strange things start happening that point to a girl named Sally who used to live there. The story moves back and forth between Amy’s present-day summer of swim practices, new friends, and family tension, and the late 1930s life of a farm girl named Penny whose path slowly, uneasily, begins to overlap with the lake and the house Amy now calls home. The mystery sits in the space between those timelines, asking what really happened at Spirit Lake and what it means for the people still living there.
I really liked how the book uses that alternating structure. At first I was more invested in Amy, mostly because her voice feels so familiar: grumpy about her parents, irritated by younger siblings, convinced no one understands her, then slowly softening as she gets pulled into swim team life and real friendship. But Penny’s chapters crept up on me. Her world is harder and narrower, full of chores and exhaustion, and then that terrible fire that takes her parents hits with real emotional weight. The mystery works because those two stories start to rhyme. Amy is lonely and displaced; Penny is lonely and trapped. Sally is caught between them as a literal ghost, but also as this symbol of what happens when adults fail kids. The writing itself is clean and straightforward, the kind of YA prose that trusts younger readers to keep up while still feeling approachable. Short chapters keep things moving, and the ghost scenes are eerie without ever turning into nightmare fuel. There is a soft, almost cozy feel to a lot of the pages, even when the subject matter is dark.
What stood out to me most was the way the author chose to center safety and care instead of just creepiness. The ghost is sad more than scary, and the book keeps circling back to the question of who looks out for children when their parents can’t or won’t. You see it in Penny’s encounters with the state worker at the hospital, who is doing her best inside a rigid system, and in how Lucy and Henry neglect and emotionally abuse Hal and Millie behind the façade of a beautiful lake house. You see it again in Amy’s realization that her “annoying” little siblings are actually kind of adorable when she lets herself pay attention, and that her parents, while imperfect, are trying very hard to give their family a better life. As a YA mystery, the book leans more emotional than plot-twist-heavy, and sometimes the coincidences that help the girls solve the decades-old case feel a little convenient, but the emotional payoffs mostly earned my trust. I cared more about Millie hugging her long-lost brother on a sunny balcony than about every logistical detail lining up perfectly.
By the end, I felt like I’d spent a summer at the lake myself, watching Amy grow into her own skin, cheering through swim meets, and then sitting up way too late trying to fit together scraps of diaries and old letters with her and her friends. The paranormal element stays light, but the feelings underneath are not. The Secret of Spirit Lake is the kind of YA mystery I’d hand to a thoughtful middle schooler or young teen who likes ghost stories that are more about healing than horror, or to adults who enjoy warm, character-driven young adult fiction with a bit of intrigue. It would fit well in school and library book clubs, especially with readers who are ready to talk about grief, neglect, and found family in a safe way.
Rating: 5
5-star Review from Readers' Favorite
Reviewed by Eric Ferrar for Readers’ Favorite
In The Secret of Spirit Lake by Jane Haltmaier, the story moves between two girls living decades apart in the same lakeside house. In the present day, fourteen-year-old Amy struggles after her parents move the family to a small town in upstate New York to open a watersports store. She misses her old home and has trouble fitting in. Amy soon hears rumors that the old Victorian house she and her family moved into is haunted by a girl named Penny, who vanished in her own time. Back in 1938, Penny lost her parents in a fire and was sent to live with relatives in the same tower room Amy now has. At the same time, weird noises at night cause Amy and her friend, Marissa, to start looking for answers. Will Amy ever figure out what really happened to Penny?
The Secret of Spirit Lake by Jane Haltmaier is a young adult mystery that blends adventure, history, and an exciting ghost story. I was drawn into Amy's and Penny’s lives because their loneliness and teen struggles seemed very real to me. I was captivated by how both girls had to adjust to life changes they never asked for. The back-and-forth jumps between the different time periods made it fairly easy to understand how their stories connect. I quickly noticed that small details, such as the tower room and the lake, linked the past and present. These aspects made the story much more fascinating. Haltmaier writes in a way that kept me reading, and I enjoyed the big reveals. I could picture the house, the town, and the people, and even after finishing, I kept thinking about it all. Very highly recommended.