(Kristin Yinger)

Moriarty explores the supernatural and humanity’s connection with it. Supposed reality merges and weaves into past and imagination, with ghostly encounters and mysteries to solve.

Though her earlier three books in the series dealt with -- at times more serious -- themes of loneliness and depression in adolescence, they did not discuss death or ghosts in this detail.

That this is a heavier book than her earlier ones does not mean that the characters are less compelling or the plot less page-turning; it merely connects the characters’ struggles to a larger implication.

Moriarty's novels usually involve very complex story lines that are told through many different formats: letters, diary entries and notes, for example. This organization lets the readers in little by little on what is going on, not only in the main action, but in the subplots.

This technique allows Moriarty’s characters to actually be in dialogue with themselves and their own inner thoughts through another medium, such as a conversation with a ghost on a Word document, as one of her characters does in “Ghosts of Ashbury High.”

She tells her story in simultaneously humorous and chilling tones, with each protagonist's individual voice and narrative style doing the characterizing for her.

Though the book may be 480 pages, it takes that length for Moriarty’s plot to unfold and twist and finally resolve. At times the plot can seem convoluted and far-fetched, but behind its façade of reality is the unreal and supernatural spectrum at work in the novel.

Some of Moriarty’s most beloved characters, the three best friends, loquacious and nosy Emily (Em), quiet but loyal Cassie (Cass), and sarcastic and strong Lydia (Lyd), who show up as prominent characters in her other novels, especially in “The Year of Secret Assignments” in which they all share starring roles, are back again in the spotlight. 

There are two new students in Year 12, the last year before university, which is highly unusual, but is compounded by the fact that they were admitted to the school under strange scholarship circumstances.

These scholarships were given, after much debate and some protest, to two students who asked for a second chance to better their lives, to put the trials and trauma of their pasts behind them and gain redemption. But what could these teenagers possibly already need redemption from?

Their names are Amelia and Riley. Their names are whispered in corridors, murmured in classrooms, and yet, they do not respond to anyone. They keep to themselves, lack enthusiasm, and never participate. Emily takes a keen interest in them from the start and makes it her personal mission—that turns into obsession—to know their stories and how they seemed to arise out of nowhere and get into their posh private high school their final year.

Lydia is the first to sight them—then tells Em and Cass. “I said they’d been together for years. I said they were swimmers. I said they trained every day, and that swimming was her passion but that he went along just to swim beside her. I said she had a secret that was breaking his heart.”

Then suddenly, the couple emerges as music virtuosos, actors extraordinaire, and champion swimmers—or so it seems to all the students and faculty with stars in their eyes. Are they all they pretend to be?

As the action unfolds, their blog posts, meetings of the scholarship committee notes and final examination essays tell the story. Em as well as her loyal buds Cass and Lyd, work together to unearth the secrets of Amelia and Riley and also to find out who—or what—has been haunting the Arts Rooms.

Past Ashbury High students, Scottish prison convicts and their lovers back home from colonial Australia’s early days, a demolished insane asylum, paranormal encounters, and some romance and violence all jumble around and somehow everything comes out, with an explanation and many "Oh!" and "Aha!" Moments.

In an interview, Moriarty said that “this is the last book in the series - for the time being. The characters have finished Year 12, and the series had reached its darkest point, so it seemed like the right time to stop and start a new series.”

She also said “this book was inspired by the ghosts who live just beyond [her] parents' garden.” Her pondering of the existence of these ghosts and their effect on the living drives a lot of the twists of this last novel. Those who maybe remain skeptical about ghosts might end up believers, at least in Moriarty’s well-spun world of fiction and fantasy.

Her attention to detail, to systematically planning trajectories for all of her characters, shows her strengths and talents as a writer and a great imaginary mind. Her ability to make her characters and their worlds seem so normal and yet so unexpected, and to then turn their lives upside down is a breath of fresh air in the young adult literature community.

This book more so than her other three, “Feeling Sorry for Celia,” “The Year of Secret Assignments,” and “The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie,” connects the stories of the characters to a larger history of the area of Australia they live in and of actual people from that time, whose stories sometimes eerily collide with the present.

In the end, the effects of this book leave a haunting and dream-like residue after reading. Though followers of her other books might mourn for the end of the series, Moriarty leaves most of her characters with a good sense of what they might do in the future, but also leaves a wide gap for those unexpected and unbelievable encounters and incidents that made her other books compelling reads.

Reach reporter Kristin Yinger here.