Boys of Blur, by N. D. Wilson

(Paperback, 208 pages, first published in 2015)

When Charlie moves to the small town of Taper, Florida, he discovers a different world. Pinned between the everglades and the swampy banks of Lake Okeechobee, the small town produces sugar cane . . . and the fastest runners in the country. Kids chase muck rabbits in the fields while the cane is being burned and harvested. Dodging flames and blades and breathing smoke, they run down the rabbits for three dollars a skin. And when they can do that, running a football is easy.

But there are things in the swamp, roaming the cane at night, that cannot be explained, and they seem connected to sprawling mounds older than the swamps. Together with his step-second cousin "Cotton" Mack, the fastest boy on the muck, Charlie hunts secrets in the glades and on the muck flats where the cane grows secrets as old as the soft earth, secrets that haunted, tripped, and trapped the original native tribes, ensnared conquistadors, and buried runaway slaves. Secrets only the muck knows.

Redeemed Reader Cautions: "Wilson peppers this book with otherworldly creatures–evil creatures that resemble modern zombies (although that gives the wrong impression slightly). Still, sensitive young readers may wish to wait a bit. That being said, Wilson has also saturated his writing with his Christian worldview in addition to the ancient literature in which he has steeped his mind." See their full review here.

Ages: 10+