A twelve-year-old’s family is deadly embarrassing (literally) in this modern middle grade coming-of-age mystery that crosses the madcap macabre humor of The Addams Family with a poignant depiction of friendship, grief, and finding your way home (even if your home is in a graveyard).

GRAVE MISTAKES: THE DEAD FAMILY
by Kitty Curran
Disney Hyperion, August 2023
(via Kaplan/DeFiore Rights)

Molly Dade has big problems. She’s got an important violin audition coming up, she’s been paired with her nemesis for a group project, and she’s struggling to hide a life-or-death secret from…well, from everyone. It wasn’t long ago that the Dades were just a regular Maine family living in their reportedly haunted house in the local cemetery. But then Molly’s mom and twin brother Marty were killed in a freak accident. And Molly, her older brother Timothy, and her father became the town’s newest bereaved family.

Except Mom and Marty are still very much present. No one knows why, but Mom is now a ghost and Marty is a poltergeist. Oh, and there’s also Molly’s younger sister Dyandra, who is a zombie.

Keeping all this supernatural stuff a secret from everyone is hard work, especially when the dead (undead?) members of the family still want to participate in things like the Parent Teacher Association meetings or come to the (very public, very potentially embarrassing) school concert.

When Dad’s new cemetery assistant seems to know the Dade family secret, Molly and Marty worry about the future of their family. And when Marty begins to regain his memories of the explosion that killed him and Mom, the twins realize that the situation might be even more grave than they thought. Someone might be after the Dade family—but who? And why?

Kitty Curran is the co-author of two adult books published by Quirk (For Your Consideration: Keanu Reaves and My Lady’s Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel), as well as a YA time-travel fantasy graphic novel forthcoming from Boom! Studios. Kitty has also worked as a designer and had her work featured in Time, Upworthy, CNN, HelloGiggles, CBS, and The Huffington Post. She is a London native who is now based in Chicago. GRAVE MISTAKES is her middle grade debut.