A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Frozen Charlotte is the third novel written by Alex Bell who has seven books to her name, some of which belong to the horror genre.   Frozen Charlotte , a young adult novel, is a creepy, strange, mysterious ghost story.  It is a terrifying read for much of the novel especially once the reader intuits just what is actually afoot regarding one of the characters. Following a frightening and bewildering incident with a ouija board cell phone app in a cafe, Sophie's best friend, Jay, drowns in a freak biking accident on the way home.  Dealing with her grief over Jay's death and determined to find out exactly what happened that night, Sophie travels to the Isle of Skye to stay with her uncle and cousins, Cameron, Piper, and Lilas, over vacation while her parents go on a long planned trip to California.  By the end of the novel this inciting mystery will be eclipsed by the story of the disturbing evil that is source of the nail biting horror. Sophie fears she and Jay...

What the Dead Want is Norah Olson's second novel; it is the first novel by Olson that I've read.  It's a rather fast paced novel in that the whole story takes place over just a couple or three days.  This is also a young adult novel.  I don't read a lot of YA, and even though there are quite a few YA titles in the library that pique my interest, I usually don't ever get around to reading them. Gretchen travels on short notice out to the boonies of upstate New York to spend the summer helping a great-aunt she never knew she had clean out her family's ancestral mansion.  When phrased like this, this seems an extremely ill-advised decision that Gretchen, a teenager, makes.  And her de facto guardian, Janine, just lets her make it even though Janine is so "level headed" and calm.  When Gretchen arrives, she finds the mansion isolated, dark, and in disrepair; the aunt, Esther, is eccentric and evasive; and cell phone reception is spotty and unreliable....

Lost Among the Living is the fifth novel by Simone St. James.  I reviewed her four preceding novels on this blog: The Haunting of Maddy Clare , An Inquiry into Love and Death , Silence For the Dead , and The Other Side of Midnight .  Click the titles to read those reviews.  St. James' next novel, The Lost Girls , is set to be released next year.  I really enjoy the mix of suspense, supernatural, and mystery in St. James' novels.  Set in post-World War I England, they're a perfect blend of historical novel, mystery, and horror.   Lost Among the Living is creepy and atmospheric, and St. James is expert at spinning a good, old fashioned ghost story. Jo Manders, a grieving widow, accepts a position with her husband's aunt, a difficult mistress, as the woman's paid companion.  However, from the moment Jo arrives at Wych Elm House, it is clear that things are not right either in the house or in the family.  Phantom footsteps follow Jo around the h...

This week's review is our semi-regular guest reviewer Miss Shayne.  This week she's reviewing the second title in a series; the first title of this particular series was one her Staff Picks 2015. After reading the first book in this series, I was confused.  The author left us hanging with a game changer!  It was then I realized that this book is part of a series.  Maureen Johnson’s cliffhanger successfully drew me back in.  I had to have more. This is the second book in the Shades of London series.  With shiny new characters and a more complex plot than the first book, this book had everything the first book lacked.  And I enjoyed the first book, too. After nearly being murdered, our protagonist Rory had to be taken out of school to go live with her parents and undergo some therapy.  A string of shady events lead her back to school where she must try tirelessly to catch up with her classes.  This is impossible though because Rory lea...

An Inquiry Into Love And Death is the second novel by Simone St. James.  I previously read and reviewed and loved her debut The Haunting of Maddy Clare .  Her third novel is set to come out later this spring.  This second novel has everything its predecessor has: period drama, mystery, ghosts, romance, thrills, and suspense.  It's a terrifying, atmospheric, scary, creepy page turner.  AND the ghost hunters, Gellis and Ryder, from Maddy Clare get a shout out in this novel.  I will admit--I'm wondering what happened to Gellis and Ryder and Sarah from the first novel, but I loved the characters in An Inquiry as much as I loved the ones from  Maddy Clare .  The debut novel took place in 1922; this novel takes place in 1924. The English seaside village of Rothewell is possibly the most haunted place in England, this according to its residents.  The main manifestation dealt with in the story is a mysterious, mischievous and possibly hostile...

The Haunting of Maddy Clare is Simone St. James' first novel; it's a ghost story set in 1920's England.  It was a page turner and hard to put down, and it was suspenseful and scary, and there was a ghost, a mystery, and a romance, and I loved it, and no library in Lebanon County has An Inquiry Into Love And Death , St. James' follow up to her debut!  So now I'll have to see if I get it from outside the county.  Her third novel will drop in April 2014.   The Haunting of Maddy Clare is a historical/period drama combined with a ghost story mystery (which basically means, it's right up my alley because ENGLISH PERIOD DRAMA and GHOST STORY) populated by characters each in their own way equally damaged and scarred by tragedy. 1922.  Rural England.  London city girl, Sarah Piper, comes to the English countryside in the employ of the young, handsome and charming Alistaire Gellis.  Gellis, a veteran of World War I, has parlayed a lifelong fascination with...

The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb is a spooky ghost story.  Spooky.  Creepy. One day out of the blue Hallie James receives a bewildering and shocking missive from an attorney on Grand Manitou Island, Michigan, that shatters everything she ever knew about her past and about her father.  The letter claims that Hallie's mother, Madlyn Crane, a famous photographer, has not been dead for thirty years as her father, who refused to speak of her mother, maintained.  What's more the lawyer says Crane has only recently died and he needs to speak to Hallie regarding her mother's will.  Hallie finds that not only did her mother, Annie, not die in a house fire three decades ago, but that wasn't even her name--and Hallie and her father have been living under assumed names all these years.  Unfortunately her father's unable to shed light on why he fled the island all those years ago and faked their deaths because he's deep in the weeds of early onset Alzheimer's...

Fortunately, good girls don't die either in Katie Alender's debut novel Bad Girls Don't Die . Once the story in this absorbing, page turning, heart pounding, wicked, creepy, suspenseful thriller gets cranked up, you won't want to put it down until you've reached the end. Alender creates the creepy atmosphere of a possessed, haunted house and sister like nobody's business--the best part is that it is subtle rather than obvious supernatural elements. The creepiness can just as easily be explained away as a manifestation of a mental breakdown as the main character tells herself over and over again before finally realizing that she is not crazy and yes, her sister is possessed by one crazy, evil ghost. Alender realistically portrays the outcast, teen outsider who doesn't fit in at her school --she doesn't want to and she doesn't care who knows it. She cuts class, speaks her mind, stands up to the popular in-crowd, and regards with scorn the misfit cr...