Home » Posts tagged "paranormal fiction" (Page 2)

Book Review: The Phantom Hour (Babysitting Nightmares #2) by Kat Shepherd

The Phantom Hour (Babysitting Nightmares #2) by Kat Shepherd

Imprint, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1250156990

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

 

This summer has been a great one for discovering books with all kinds of girls, from reckless risktakers to insecure new girls, facing their fears– literally.  What a victory for representation, am I right? I wanted to make a list, but I would have spent hours on it.

Babysitting Nightmares by Kat Shepherd is a series I want to see succeed like crazy. I encountered the second book, The Phantom Hour, at the library, and it is so much fun! Apparently there’s a third out now, The Ghost Light, so I’ll be back at the library soon.  The book centers on four friends, all seventh graders, with very different interests and backgrounds. Clio is the leader,  and the book is worth reading, if for no other reason, than to encounter her aunt, Kawanna, who runs a costume shop called Creature Feature located in a storefront on Coffin Street, wears a Godzilla print skirt, hosts horror movie nights for the girls, and drives them where they need to go on their secret missions without actually interfering. Doesn’t she sound like someone you’d want to be friends with?

If you were thinking “this sounds like The Babysitters Club dressed up with ghosts”, you’d be wrong. While there is a standalone storyline in this book, there’s also a thread that connects it to the first book and on into the third. In the first book, the four girls had to enter the Nightmare Realm to retrieve one of their charges who had been replaced with a changeling,  but apparently the Nightmare Realm is not done with them. So as they go about their daily lives and babysitting jobs, they also have to contend with containing the Nightmare Realm. In The Phantom Hour,  Clio takes a job babysitting for the Lee family, who have just moved into the abandoned Plunkett Mansion. Of course the mansion has a supernatural resident, and it’s up to Clio, with help from her friends, to figure out what’s going on and resolve it.  Shepherd does a nice job not just of portraying a diverse group of girlfriends (including three girls of color) who really support each other. The little girl Clio is babysitting is hearing impaired and she’s also represented respectfully.

While most hardcore horror lovers might not get much of a scare out of this book, it has some genuinely creepy and frightening moments– the ghost in the story is not a friendly one.  This series is a nice change from books about girlfriends who are crushing on boys and tearing each other down. It’s not every day you see a positive depiction of four smart, geeky girlfriends taking on and defeating the supernatural, and this one is tops.  Highly recommended.

 

Posted on August 7, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Peter Green and the Unliving Academy: This Book is Full of Dead People (The Unliving Chronicles #1) by Angelina Allsop

Peter Green and the Unliving Academy: This Book is Full of Dead People (The Unliving Chronicles #1) by Angelina Allsop

TCK Publishing, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-1631610646

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

Fourteen year old Peter Green wakes up on the floor of a hotel lobby wearing only pajamas and a silk tie, and discovers he is dead, has no memories of his life, and is stuck in Purgatory without them until he is 18, or family claims him. After navigating the bueracracy of Purgatory (and of course Purgatory has bueracracy) he is sent to a boarding school for other “orphans” or unclaimed children. Scoot, an action-oriented redhead who carries her head under her arm, and Charlie, a flamboyant dresser who can’t keep a secret, orient him to the school and get him to his first classes. Peter soon learns that the school isn’t just for the unliving– it’s also the home of monsters, most of whom are part of the staff. He quickly gets on the wrong side of the school bully, Shelly Grant, causing a number of mishaps, and is then invited to join BASA, a special club that trains students in the skills they need to become spies and assassins in the “community”.  As he adapts to school and throws himself into his training for BASA, he can’t let go of a feeling that he needs to help his family, and with the help of his friends, steals the file containing his memories.

The world building in this is nicely done, and I liked Peter’s friends– especially Charlie– and some of the other characters Allsop got into in depth, such as Katerina the witch. As a magical boarding school book, it’s pretty well done, and while there are some similarities to Harry Potter, it’s mostly not noticeable (the werewolf professor, the giant snake roaming the hallways, the special Halloween visit to town). Allsop also manages to make what could be a pretty grim and scary topic genuinely entertaining and even humorous at times . It’s Peter himself whose character and story are thin. Perhaps some of this is because he doesn’t have memories (and thus not much of a personality) for much of the book, but while individual adventures and incidents get exciting, the suspense of whether he’ll be able to get back to his family is just not there, until suddenly, it’s a time sensitive emergency.  I hoped that we’d see more of the school in a future book, as this appears to be the first in a series, but the ending of the book makes that unlikely.

Despite Peter’s age being set at 14, the book feels like it’s targeted at middle-grade readers rather than teenagers. Kids looking for a “magical boarding school book” should enjoy this one, and hopefully, now that Peter has his memories back, there will be further character development to make him more interesting in the next book. Recommended.

 

Posted on June 30, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Ouija by Elysia Dobbins


Ouija by Elysia Dobbins

Newman Springs Publishing, 2019

ISBN 978-1-64096-675-8 (paperback); ISBN-978-64096-676-5 (digital)

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Ouija by Elysia Dobbins takes place somewhere on earth and sometime in the future. Humans and non-humans have paranormal powers and gather at a gala convention showcasing vendors of magic and classes on the supernatural. Jesse Monroe, a pretty young witch, befriends Nako, a winged seraph cat, and Louis Lygtbut, a humanoid doctor with a scaly torso from another planet. The leering owner of the enormous casino hotel where the convention is being held, invites them to a demonstration of a new virtual Ouija game, unbeknownst to the knowledge that Charlie, a malevolent spirit, has hacked into the software. The casino hotel was built on the ruins of a mental hospital, where patients were tortured, a meat-packing plant where humans were butchered, and a church. Ages ago, a cataclysmic battle was fought between forces of good and evil at the site.

When the program is activated, Charlie materializes and opens a gate to the spirit world. Crazed ghosts of patients, nurses, butchers and monsters come through. Charlie seizes control of the service and security robots. They begin massacring the guests. Jesse and her friends seek refuge in the hidden, astral remnant of the church. Aegis, the powerful, winged angel, who failed to save the church and its priestess ages ago, guards the remnant. Can Jesse and her friends save themselves and win the new battle?

Young adult readers will appreciate the short, 126-page novel. The plot moves along quickly and many new and familiar characters, vampires, ghost dogs and spirit hounds make appearances. The novel has a lot of action, but not too much gore.  Fair warning: the publisher probably used a digital editing program, as there are frequent grammatically incorrect, but not misspelled words, that interrupt the reader’s flow. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Robert D. Yee

Posted on June 22, 2019 by , Reply
First « 12345 » Last