The Hike to Home

Stuck in Newbridge, N.J., with her father while her mother participates in a yearlong film residency in the Dry Tortugas, 12-year-old Melinda "Lin" Moser feels miserable. She's spent years traveling the country as part of her parents' popular YouTube home renovation show, Moseying with the Mosers, and resents being left behind. Ditching summer camp for her own film project, Lin becomes determined to find and film Pen's Castle, a rumored local haunt off the Appalachian Trail with purported roots in Arthurian legend and connections to Freemasonry. Along the way, she also hopes to prove that she--like both her mother and 19th-century mountaineer Annie Smith Peck, the subject of a book her mom sends her--is a true adventurer. Alongside musical theater enthusiast Tinsley Cooper, whose father is recovering from a work accident at local Sanders Construction, and bookish Leo Martin, bullied by another Sanders, Lin searches for clues about the castle while concocting a plan to spend two days hiking and filming in the woods. Rinker (The Dare Sisters) packs themes and plot points into a novel whose real strength is its characters; if the story sometimes bogs down as a result, the white-cued kids' rapport and significant emotional arcs satisfy. Ages 8-12. Agent: Linda Epstein, Emerald City Literary. (July)