The Presence: A Ghost Story [Hardcover]

Eve Bunting (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

A brutal car accident that claimed the life of her best friend has left seventeen-year-old Catherine in a state of shock and severe depression. She longs to move forward with her life, but feels she can’t until she is somehow assured of her friend’s forgiveness. On a Christmas visit to her grandmother in Pasadena, a mysterious and handsome stranger approaches Catherine at church claiming that he can put her in touch with her dead friend. Catherine is wary of the stranger’s claims and his ghostly appearance but feels he may be the only key to escaping her past. She tells no one of the meeting but is approached by an elderly woman who warns her of the stranger’s powers. The woman’s teenage diary and eerie rumors surrounding other troubled girls who have disappeared from the church community leave Catherine fearful of the stranger’s true intentions. She realizes she must find some way to confront this supernatural presence as well as the ghosts of her past.
A classic ghost story from one of Clarion’s most distinguished authors. Eve Bunting brings a new edge to the genre of suspense by interweaving contemporary issues with sharp and frightful storytelling.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-10-Seventeen-year-old Catherine, seriously depressed after a tragic accident in which she was injured and her closest friend died, is visiting her grandmother in Pasadena, CA. She is hopeful that the peace of Grandma's beloved St. Matthew's Church will help rest her tortured mind, but they are both unaware that an evil presence lives in the basement of the church-one of the undead who intends to claim Catherine as his own. Although the teen is intrigued and hopeful that the handsome stranger who appears only to her really can help her channel the dead, she is repulsed by the coldness of the air surrounding him and his icy touch. Warning bells in her mind intensify as an elderly woman warns her to stay away and she learns that a number of girls have disappeared from town over the years, and they all looked very much like her. Is this ghostly stranger real, or is Catherine having a complete nervous breakdown? Bunting, long a favorite of teen thrill seekers, has produced another winner in this well-written story of acute loneliness, alienation, romance, the occult, hope, and tragedy. Fans of the genre will surely pass it from friend to friend, and it's a natural for reluctant readers.
Susan Riley, Mount Kisco Public Library, NY
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 6-10. Seventeen-year-old Catherine is visiting her grandmother in Pasadena, where everyone hopes she will recover from the shock and guilt over a friend's death in an auto accident. Enter Noah, aka "the Presence." As readers learn from alternating chapters, in the voices of Noah and Catherine, this handsome young man tempts Catherine by telling her he has made contact with her deceased friend. She thinks he is a psychic, but readers quickly learn he is a ghost, one with a history of luring girls who look remarkably like Catherine to his room in a church and killing them. This is fine for what it is, a chilling little ghost story, handily turned by a veteran writer. Despite Bunting's skill, however, don't look too closely; there are coincidences galore. Catherine, who at one point laughs at characters in thrillers who open a door when they know they shouldn't, does exactly that. The climax, in which Noah returns to life only to die again, is too brief to be satisfying, but there's a hint of a sequel. Not everyone thinks he's dead. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Clarion Books; None edition (September 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618269193
• ISBN-13: 978-0618269198
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,533,633 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eve Bunting has written more than 200 books for children, many of which can be found in libraries around the world. Her other Clarion titles for very young readers include My Big Boy Bed, which was also illustrated by Maggie Smith, and Little Bear's Little Boat, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. She lives in Pasadena, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars church of horror, April 20, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Presence: A Ghost Story (Hardcover)

This book isn't the best book i've read but it is one thrilling book. Full of chills by the presence or ghost confined to St.Matthews Church in Pasodina. The ghost lurers long dark haired big eyed ladies to live with him forever. He's killed over six ladies and has each one of them painted by him in a frame. He paints there picture to show that he loved each girl the same. Now he's lonely and Catherine happens to be there having a problem Noah, the presence can possibly fix by his love and his powers that each of his girls thought exist. Now Catherine is his next victim and she is warned by one of Noah's victims that got away from him, what she was in for. I recommend
this book to you if you like horror and fantasy. This book will have you guessing to the end if Catherine will survive and get away from Noah with his bone chilling tactics to have Catherine as his forever. In the book he tries to lurer Catherine back into her past of killing her friend which is spooky and horrifying.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very pleasant surprise..... :), September 13, 2004

By 

Liolania "In2Jesus" (Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Presence: A Ghost Story (Hardcover)

Every now and then, while I am at the library, I will pick a random book out to read, and sometimes they turn out to be great books, sometimes they suck. But luckily enough, when I picked "The Presence" by Eve Bunting, I picked right.

I am a sucker for ghost stories, so right off the bat, I had to pick this, but that didn't mean I expected it to be good, nope. Exactly the opposite, I thought it would be quite bad, quite ordinary. But it is not.

The Presence is one of those rare stories that tells the tale of not only how one girl copes with loss, but how many cope with loss. And it does it well, this is the second book I have read recently on this issues, the other being "Pop Princess", but out of the two, I would have to say that this one is better. For a few reasons: 1. the humans are'nt walking cliches. The people are quite real, everything seems quite real, while keeping a somwhat surreal atmosphere. 2. The author doesn't fall into the same traps as Rachel Cohn, despite uses the same basic story, except in a different setting. The character in this is coping in a different way, but she comes off as very likeable, unlike the lead in "Pop Princess".

Now, I know, you're probably going, "Geez, you must've hated that book!", actually, I loved it, but I think that it didn't succeed on the same level as The Presence. The Presence really captures Catherine's pain, by slowly revealing it to us throughout the novel instead of telling us right off the bat. It has an air of mystery too it, also because of the ghost she encounters, Noah, he is very mysterious, and his past is revealed slowly as well, keeping us wondering exactly why he is this way, until the end. :)

The book doesn't end in a snug package, but it does end nicely. It didn't feel contrived, or unnatural, I liked the way it ended, because it shows us a little more than some novels show, but also a little less at the same time. :)

Anyways, I know I haven't been overly descriptive, but I think it is best to leave you wondering, this book unravels its tale slowly, but it keeps you reading till the very end. And that is why I cannot reveal more without guilt, it just wouldn't be right. :D

God Bless & *enjoy* ~Amy

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Book... READ IT!!, April 30, 2004

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Presence: A Ghost Story (Hardcover)

The book Presence by Eve Bunting is such a great book. I just kept on reading and reading it without putting it down. That's why I finished the book in 3 days. The way Eve Bunting describes the story is just remarkable! I could just picture the sequence of events in my head. My favorite part was when Catherine started to see all those girls that looked like her. She was so shocked. And I would be too if I saw all these girls that had almost the exact face as me. I would recommend this book to anyone especially 12 years and up. This book is great!