Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Help for the Haunted by John Searles

I'm not normally a fan of Gothic-ghost story type stuff, but lately have found a taste for it in some of the recent YA lit coming out. I heard about this book from someone or other who read a review and heard an interview with the author, and then it popped up in my radar on the book sites as well.

I thought this tale was well crafted, dark, but with good depth. I'm making the mistake of writing the review a week after I finished the book, and don't have my copy in front of me to refer back to, so will rely on reviews of the plot already out there to give those details. From me, you'll get that I liked the characters, I liked the way the story unfolded, with present day and then back to the time before the murders of Sylvie and Rose's parents -- parents whose occupation was helping "haunted souls" find their peace. Family dynamics in the most normal of families can be twitchy when adolescence hits, and this family was not exempt. But unraveling all the other threads that braid together to tell this tale was a nice read, and a good reminder that things are not always what they seem.

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