Megan E McDonnell

Under the Surface Megan E McDonnell

Seventeen-year-old Lauren Williams, self-proclaimed rebel and professional mother-disappointer, needs an escape. When Lauren hears about the legend of Lake Modoc, she's intrigued; exploring the forgotten underwater town is exactly the kind of adventure to take her mind off her dismal grades and the history teacher who has it out for her. Together with her two best friends, Lauren hops on a boat (somewhat illegally), and sets out to discover the Atlantis of Owego County. One problem: Lauren must bring her eight-year-old sister, Roxie, along for the ride. And in the spilt second Lauren and her friends find the creepy, algae-covered church steeple under the lake, Roxie disappears from the boat. Silently, impossibly, Roxie is gone. While the police and the county focus their efforts on dragging the lake, Lauren is wracked with grief. She becomes obsessed with uncovering the secrets behind Roxie's increasingly mysterious disappearance. The further she digs, the more she realizes that century-old secret towns buried under lakes like being buried. Unwittingly, Lauren unleashes the old town's scandalous, malevolent history-and if she doesn't find her sister soon, that history is doomed to repeat itself. With Roxie's life hanging by a thread, Lauren must dive under the surface to save her sister... or live under the weight of her death forever.