I have loved Joan Bauer for years, ever since a book group I was part of did Rules of the Road (I think that was the one that started me on her). She’s never written a bad book; sure there are some that I liked more (Hope was Here, Sticks), but honestly I liked them all. And this was no exception.

Hildy Biddle is a high school journalist at a struggling high school newspaper in a small town (known mostly for its apple orchards) in upstate New York. Life is pretty normal — and boring — until someone is arrested at the abandoned Ludlow house (site of two murders 30 years before, and associated with the death of a girl 5 years ago), and the town paper is drumming up the fear business. All that’s left is Hildy and her friends on The Core to get to the bottom of the story.

Far-fetched? Probably. Entertaining? Very. Perhaps it was because I was in Hildy’s shoes in high school — having dreams of becoming a journalist (dreams which didn’t die until I became jaded by my experience with the paper in college) — and feeling a need to not only tell the story, but to get to the bottom of it. (If I had had a newspaper adviser like Baker Polton, I may have led a different life…) I really related to her, and to her struggle against the odds. Bauer attempts to do a lot in this book. Because not only is this a story about a journalist-in-training, but it’s the classic David-and-Goliath story. Small town invaded by large corporation wanting to “progress”. Farmers versus devlopers. Small town verus city. (Feeds right into my buying local and building community sentiments.) Throw in a little dealing-with-death, and first-blush romance, and you’ve pretty much got this book in a nutshell.

Perhaps because she’s doing so much that the book felt uneven for me. I liked the reporting parts. But the rest of it kind of felt forced. I liked Zach, but the romance fell flat. It’s nice to know that she misses her dad, but I really wasn’t all that interested in her struggle. Thankfully, those parts weren’t that prevailant so they didn’t bother me all that much.

Even with the flaws, it was a really good book. But then, it’s Joan Bauer.