By popular demand, Manitoba author Vivian Munnoch releases a second Latchkey Kids book, “The Latchkey Kids: The Disappearance of Willie Gordon”.
The Latchkey Kids: The Disappearance of Willing Gordon
The Latchkey Kids series book 2
By Vivian Munnoch,
Author of dark fiction for young readers
After repeated requests for a follow-up book, Canadian author Vivian Munnoch has written a continuation to the novel “The Latchkey Kids”.
The Latchkey Kids series is a drama packed middle grade thriller. “I purposely avoid describing the kids’ physical appearances because I want the reader to put her or himself into their shoes, no matter the reader’s background.”
This series is “clean”. It is middle grade school library safe.
Five kids, twelve and thirteen years old and on their own before and after school, each faces their own struggles; a broken home, illness, crushes, bullying, depression, absent parents, suicidal thoughts, broken friendships, and fears of being only a kid and home alone.
What would you do if you came home from school alone and heard noises in the basement?
The Latchkey Kids: The Disappearance of Willie Gordon (book 2):
Madison, Andrew, Kylie, Anna, and Dylan survived the abandoned factory fire. They thought it was over. Spring break is ending and they are still trying to pick of the pieces of their shattered beliefs in what the world is supposed to be.
Life goes on as if nothing happened. But it did happen. And it is happening again.
Nothing in their lives seems to have changed when everything feels like it did. Everything is back to normal, right?
And then Willie Gordon vanishes.
While new jealousies burn, problems kept secret begin to emerge, and Joshua joins the group after his sister committed suicide, the group feels they are the only ones who can find Willie. Nobody believes them that the monsters are real.
The kids have to face the monsters again, in the basements where they nest.
The Latchkey Kids (book 1): (Click to buy)
In The Latchkey Kids you are introduced to the five characters, Madison, Andrew, Kylie, Anna, and Dylan. Each has their own private world of problems they feel trapped alone in.
Madison, “plain old boring nothing ever happens to Madison”, is finally a latchkey kid for the first time. She just turned twelve. And what does she do on her first day ever having to come home alone? She loses her key; on one of the coldest days of a very cold winter.
Andrew has been a latchkey kid since last year but has never gotten used to being home alone. He hears noises in the basement that unnerve him; noises that his parents dismiss as nothing more than the house making noises. Being home alone scares him, but he won’t admit it to anyone.
Anna is alone more than anyone knows. She is a rebel without a cause, skipping school and doing whatever she wants. Dressed always in her long-sleeved shirts and I don’t care attitude, even her teachers have given up on Anna. Behind the face of indifference Anna is a tortured soul. Her younger brother is in the hospital with a terminal illness and may never come home. Her mother spends all her time at the hospital while her father works three jobs trying to hold the family together. Anna is utterly and completely alone, left to raise herself, her parents merely a footnote of her life.
Dylan was a latchkey kid before. Now he goes to a babysitter. Embarrassing! He does not want anyone to know, but is also terrified at the idea of being home alone; ever since their house was broken into, trashed, the perpetrators attempting to burn it down and torturing their now traumatized dog. That weakness and fear is even more of an embarrassment to him. Dylan has anger issues, lashing out thoughtlessly, his problems bottled up inside to the point they are seeping out in explosive bursts of violence. As far as school bullies go, Dylan is the worst at Woodside School. He is also raving mad crushing on Kylie.
Kylie feels like her life is a special kind of hell. She sees what others have and is quietly resolved to not having it. Her single mother is struggling to keep their little family together. It is just her, her mother, and her little sister. She lives in fear of her abusive father, who her mother finally managed to gather the courage to kick out. She lives in fear of Amber Shaw and the Mean Team, whose sole purpose in life seems to be to torture, torment, and bully Kylie. Amber has a special hatred for Kylie.
Newly introduced at the end of the Latchkey Kids:
Joshua walks into the Latchkey Kids world at the end of book one, confronting Amber Shaw in public and accusing her of killing his sister. His sister committed suicide because of Amber’s online bullying. This is only the start to his story and the problems he faces.
Vivian Munnoch grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba and continues to live in Manitoba with her family and rescue dogs. Vivian’s writing has always had a vein of darkness to it.
“I’ve always loved horror. I used to sneak downstairs as a kid at night to watch old killer B horror flicks. They were delightfully naughty and scary for a kid before the world evolved into the online forum it is today.”
Vivian Munnoch is working on a few other projects. The Wishing Stone series will touch on a few of young readers’ fan favourites of vampires and the like, but with a darker twist. These creatures are not romantic. The Butterflies in the Garden series is a dark fantasy. You will never see your garden in the same way.
Vivian Munnoch’s books are available on Amazon Kindle and in print on Amazon. You can also check Vivian’s Facebook author page to find out where she will be signing books in the community.
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