"Waiting on Wednesday" - Palace Beautiful

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Palace Beautiful by Sarah Deford Williams

Release date:  February 15th 2010 by G. P. Putnam's Sons  

When sisters Sadie and Zuzu Brooks move to Salt Lake City, they discover a secret room in the attic of their new house, with a sign that reads “Palace Beautiful” and containing an old journal. Along with their neighbor, dramatic Belladonna Desolation (real name: Kristin Smith), they take turns reading the story of a girl named Helen living during the flu epidemic of 1918. The journal ends with a tragedy that has a scary parallel to Sadie and Zuzu’slives, and the girls become obsessed with finding out what happened to Helen after the journal ends.
Did she survive the flu? Is she still alive somewhere? Or could her ghost be lurking in the nearby graveyard?

I have always been intrigued by books and movies about secret rooms.  The fact that this one has an historical  twist is something that I love!  I think that historical fiction is one way to expand the genres of Middle Grade and Young Adult fiction.