Sixteen-year-old Seth Anomundy is a product of his environment: in this case, Tacoma, Washington. What L.A. was to Chandler, Tacoma - a working-class port city now undergoing urban renewal - is to author Tom Llewellyn. Seth has grown up in Tacoma's tough neighborhoods, where he's perfectly at home in Choo-Choo's boxing gym and Miss Irene's soul food palace, the Shotgun Shack. With his mom working nights as a cleaner, Seth goes to high school, gets...

When Josh, his parents, grandfather, and eight-year-old brother move into the old Tilton House, they discover such strange things as talking rats, a dimmer switch that makes the house invisible, and a powder that makes objects grow.

Thirteen-year-old Gabe buys a bottle bearing an imp that will grant his every wish, but someone else will pay the price and, if he dies while owning the bottle, he will lose his soul.