Not only are the characters SECRE SO DEEP interesting (high school juniors), but so is the setting- a Connecticut beach, where a four-week theater intensive is starting. Everyone seems to be attractive and fairly self-assured, guaranteeing a fun and maybe volatile mix of personalities, especially since the beer is already flowing thanks to George the Wisper Cove caretaker who is willing to supply it if the kids slip him some weed. Best of all, there seems to be a celebrity director for this event. The attendees are from various locations. Valeria (“Val”) is from Los Angeles; Avril is from Dallas; male characters: Lex is from Nashville, Jude from Macon, Georgia; and Cole, the son of director Willa Culver. But it is more than teenage partying and hints of early physical attractions because by page 10, Avril is caught in an undertow and is mentally lost as she thinks of her deceased mother. However, that would end the story too soon, and instead the scare factor shifts to tales of Whisper Cove being haunted. The voices of women who died here two hundred years ago supposedly lure others out to sea. Is that why Avril Vincent was disoriented and temporarily caught in an undertow?