A Guide to the Dark [Paperback]

You can check out of Room 9, but you can never leave.

The Haunting of Hill Housemeets Nina LaCour in this paranormal mystery YA about the ghosts we carry with us.

Something is building, simmering just out of reach.

The room is watching. But Mira and Layla don't know this yet. When the two best friends are stranded on their spring break college tour road trip, they find themselves at the Wildwood Motel, located in the middle of nowhere, Indiana. Mira can't shake the feeling that there is something wrong and rotten about their room. Inside, she's haunted by nightmares of her dead brother. When she wakes up, he's still there.

Layla doesn't see him. Or notice anything suspicious about Room 9. The place may be a little run down, but it has a certain charm she cant wait to capture on camera. If Layla is being honest, shes too preoccupied with confusing feelings for Mira to see much else. But when they learn eight people died in that same room, they realize there must be a connection between the deaths and the unexplainable things that keep happening inside it. They just have to find the connection before Mira becomes the ninth.

Readers won't be able to put down this tender thriller that includes over thirty interior black and white photos by the author!

A School Library Journal Best Book of 2023

Meriam Metouiis a writer, book editor, and (when she has the time) a photographer. She graduated from the University of Michigan and Hunter College, where she received a masters degree in English literature. Born in Tunisia, she now lives in Detroit, Michigan with her partner and puppy.A Guide to the Darkis her debut novel.

 Readers will have trouble putting this one down even for a minute. School Library Journal,starred review

Metoui masterfully handles perspective...themes of grief, fraught and romantic queer connections to a friend, and familial expectations lS@