The Whisperings by Joel A. Sutherland

Reviewed by Wendy Hawkin

Reader Beware: This fast-paced Young Adult novel contains several graphic, disturbing scenes of indescribable gore and violence. Actually, I shouldn’t say “indescribable” because it’s Sutherland’s sensory play-by-plays that push it over the edge into the HORROR realm, giving Stephen King a run for his money. Quill & Quire’s called him Canada’s answer to R.L. Stine. If the macabre is not to your taste you might want to give it a pass, but if you’re intrigued by Halloween horror, Stranger Things, and masterfully crafted suspense, read on.

This rapid-fire tale is as highly emotional as its teenage protagonists. Seventeen-year-old Joana, her thirteen-year-old brother Peter, and her troubled father are on the run—not from evil humans but from the voices that haunt their tortured father. The Whisperings.

“They whisper in my ear in the middle of the night as I sleep. They murmur, mumble, and mutter, often nothing more than a stream of indecipherable nonsense. Clear words sometimes jump out of the noise, like fish flying from the water, and sometimes the voices yell. But they all want, and need, and demand”(53).

Every time The Whisperings take hold, the Guests pack their car and drive off to find a new town. This nomadic existence started thirteen years ago when Joana’s mother was violently murdered in their family home. (Note: her horrific murder is described in vivid detail later in the story.) Now, they’ve arrived in the small town of Burlington, Vermont and rented the dank basement of a sprawling (and crawling) Victorian house from old Mrs. Cracknell. It’s a fixer-upper with reduced rent because Dad’s a handyman. It’s hard to keep a job when you’re constantly running from the voices in your head.

Known locally as “The Kill House”, it’s alive, not only with the spirits of a family torn asunder by a tragic murder-suicide, but with creepy insects that natter in the walls. “Ta-tump, ta-tump, ta-tump!” You see, Abraham Keil, the depraved murderer, was an entomologist at the local university. Centipedes and spiders lurk in these musty pages, and a Death Watch Beetle sings Joana into her closet, where she bashes in the wall and discovers the red room. Use your imagination.

If that’s not enough, there’s a creepy little beetle dead-centre every time we break scenes that makes me jump even though I know it’s coming.

When Joana tumbles from a red rock cliff, narrowly escaping with her life, she awakens in hospital with the ability to see ghosts herself. The Whisperings have somehow been transferred to her via a concussion. Woven through the story is a B-plot love story that offers some relief from the nail-biting suspense. Joana meets Willem, a quirky, bookish boy who works at the local diner and christens her, Pumpkin Spice on account of her first latte. How sweet. Will they both survive the hauntings?

Joana’s been on the run since she was four years old and wants nothing more than to put down roots in Burlington, an old-timey village that feels like home to her. She loves to run, and this talent earns her a place on the school rugby team. Things seem to be working out, what with rugby and Willem, until they’re not.

Canadian author Joel A. Sutherland is the award-winning author of Scholastic Canada’s Haunted Canada series (now a graphic novel in development for television). This “master of the macabre” lives in Ontario with his family, but sets his books south of the border in Vermont. His novel, Summer’s End, was a Red Maple Award Honour Book. The Whisperings follows his debut YA novel, House of Ash and Bone, a novel of ghosts and witches, also set in Vermont. He received a Masters of Information and Library Studies from Aberystwyth University in Wales.

In the Afterword, Sutherland explains that horror stories “teach us how to defeat the thing hiding under our bed, the monster lurking in our closet, or the voices only we can hear. They give us the tools we need to face our fears. They remind us that we’re not alone; when the lights go out, we all get a little scared. But in the morning, the sun always rises” (289). Well, maybe not for ALL the characters in this book. If you’re craving frenzied goosebumps, this may be the book for you.

Published by Tundra, a division of Penguin Random House Canada.

Wendy Hawkin writes Young Adult fiction as Harper Carr. The Shadow Man, her upcoming paranormal lighthouse mystery, launches in February 2026.