The Clearing by Tom Deady is a story of an ancient past filled with exciting and mind-blowing details. It takes place in the lovely town of New Hampshire, but the plot isn’t so lovely. Two girls named Hannah and Ashley start off the book. The book describes the story mainly through Hannah’s experience, though the author occasionally switches to Ashley’s point of view in the beginning of the story. It is a book that is well recommended to both adults and young adults that are interested in reading the sinister truth behind the mystery of it. The author starts the book off with Hannah taking a stroll with her dog through the woods in her new neighborhood, but that happy strolling soon turns questionable as she finds a decayed foot of a girl in the ground. The foot is found originally by her dog, Scout, but she wastes no time in telling her about this situation to her friend, Ashley. With her parents being divorced, she worries that revealing this information to her father would be very worrisome to him. On top of that, after conducting some research, both of the girls figure out that somehow, their next door neighbor Mama Boyole is involved. They also suspect that a local librarian as well and a local cop are involved. The question is: How? What do they do that involves this situation? The girls decide to investigate a little further, along with a little help from other characters introduced by the author later on in the book, and each page reveals something new and surprising about the whole situation . . .about the true ancient history of the rituals. This book is great for people who have interest in genres of books like mystery and horror. Not only does it exercise the reader’s brain, it also keeps them interested in turning the page,making them expect something unexpected. I personally really liked the book and loved the tension the author created using bold and mysterious words. Obviously, as it is a young adult book, it does have some sensitive language, but it is truly a book that deserves five stars due to its phenomenal plot and delivery.