Review: The Ghost Who Lost Her Boo! by Elaine Bickell and Raymond McGrath (Illustrations)

The Little Ghost Who Lost Her Boo!

by Elaine Bickell, Raymond McGrath (Illustrations)

Release Date: August 18th 2020

2020 Philomel Books

Kindle Edition: 32 Pages

ISBN: 978-0593202159

ASIN: B081Y3HYJH

Genre: Fiction / Children

Source: Review copy from publisher

4.5 / 5 Stars

Summary

'I've lost my boo! I've lost my boo! Where has it gone? What will I do?' Little Ghost has lost her boo, but she is determined to get it back, so she heads out to look for it. On her night-time hunt she meets a number of her friends, Owl, Pigeon, Rooster and Cow, and asks each of them if they've heard her boo. None of them have but they are all very kind and offer Little Ghost their own sound instead. But none are as good as her own scary boo so she keeps on looking. In the end, it's the reader who finds it for her!

 

My Thoughts

The Ghost Who Lost her Boo! was such a sweet little children's book.  With captivating illustrations and a fun rhyming story to go with those illustrations, this is a book that little ones will devour.

 

Elaine Bickell has written a cute rhyming story that incorporates a number of animal characters that Little Ghost encounters as she searches for her lost boo.  On the surface, this seems like a fun search, there is a much deeper message here as Little Ghost explores a host of different sounds from the other animals, but realizes those sounds don't quite work for her and is not willing to just accept them and trade her missing boo for just any new sound.  She really liked her own personal sound and is not willing to compromise so will continue to search until she finds it.  There would be a lot to discuss with a young child regarding this concept and that appeals to me quite a bit.  

 

Another theme running through this story is one of determination, where you don't give up until you find what you are looking for, and sometimes you may need help to find it.  I really liked that theme, and again, it would be an important theme to discuss with children when reading this book.  As a teacher, I was even going through a list of questions and topics I would discuss with children after presenting this book to them.  

 

What I really adored in this book though, were the illustrations.  You have this relatively dark background full of mysterious things, and if you look closely, there is a lot to look at, something to which a child will pay a lot of attention.  Then you have these eye-popping colours of the animals which makes them stand out which I loved.  And Little Ghost was all in white, so explosive on the page.  I spent a few minutes checking out each page before continuing, admiring the illustrations, which is why I still read children's books to this day.  

 

Verdict

The Ghost Who Lost Her Boo! is a clever little story although I do feel the illustrations overwhelm the actual rhyming story, and I was content to just look at those beautiful pictures.  I even read the book twice just to look at them again.  I would highly recommend this little gem to any little child as there is a lot to discuss, plus the illustrations are beautiful.  

Review: The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry

The Ghost Tree

by Christina Henry

Release Date: September 8th 2020

2020 Berkley Books

Softcover Edition; 415 Pages

ISBN: 978-0451492302

ASIN: B083RZ5SYK

Genre: Fiction / Mystery / Paranormal

Source: Review copy from publisher

2.5 / 5 Stars

Summary

When the bodies of two girls are found torn apart in the town of Smiths Hollow, Lauren is surprised, but she also expects that the police won't find the killer. After all, the year before her father's body was found with his heart missing, and since then everyone has moved on. Even her best friend, Miranda, has become more interested in boys than in spending time at the old ghost tree, the way they used to when they were kids.

So when Lauren has a vision of a monster dragging the remains of the girls through the woods, she knows she can't just do nothing. Not like the rest of her town. But as she draws closer to answers, she realizes that the foundation of her seemingly normal town might be rotten at the center. And that if nobody else stands for the missing, she will.

 

My Thoughts

The Ghost Tree had such an interesting premise: creepy small town, murdered father, witch legend, curse, eerie forest, and the 'tree'. What's not to love about all of those things when they are put together in what could have been such a fun, creepy story? Well, when fun creepy becomes campy and silly.  

 

I'll start with the strongest ingredient in this book, the setting and the atmosphere.  This is definitely not a town I'd like to visit, but for a horror setting, it's perfect.  With a creepy atmosphere layering almost everything the characters do, it's the perfect setup for some scary fun.  You've got the eerie house on the hill that every kid is afraid to approach, but makes for some interesting fun nights for those same kiddos when they are dared to race up to the porch and cause some mischief.  You've got the scary forest of which almost everyone is afraid, but they don't know why.  There is the murder of the main character's father that occurred over a year ago, but people are already forgetting about for reasons the main character can't understand.  There is the current murder of two girls, but again no one seems to really remember anything much about it or seems to care.  So yes, the perfect atmosphere for a deliciously scary story.

 

But, the author ruins all of that with her campy, silly characters and the seemingly endless references to the eighties as if we'd forget the time period of the book.  I can deal with the over-the-top cheesy horror stuff (I have watched Scream about a dozen times or so), but there is just some stuff I couldn't let go of though.  

****Spoilers ahead.****

 

Let me start with Miranda and Lauren, neither of whom I liked, but for very different reasons.  Both girls are 14 and 15 years old, and yes, it's important to remember their ages as this is one of the things with which I had a huge issue.  I think if I read one more line about how all Miranda wanted to do was lose her virginity, I was going to throw the book against the wall.. Seriously?  How many times can you read about a character pushing her boobs up against a guy before you've had enough.  And if that guy wasn't good enough, there was another one with a cool car waiting just around the corner because after all, you couldn't walk to school when you were fifteen.  Can you feel the sarcasm dripping from that sentence?   And Lauren, being chased by a guy almost five years older? What is up with that? Sorry, but I have a huge problem with that. That gives a new meaning to the word creepy. What would an almost-nineteen-year-old boy want from a fourteen year old girl? Yes, they could be friends, but this is not what happened. And neither of these characters were a treat to those around them either, to their parents or to most of the other characters or to each other, and they were supposed to be best friends.

The one character I really did like was Lauren's little brother. At four years old, he was sharp as a tack and understood things about people and the town he really should not have known at his age, but this was a novel about the paranormal so it worked.  I thought the scenes he was in were the highlight of this book.

 

At first, the eighties references were fun and nostalgic, but then they didn't stop.  And they really did detract from the story.  I can deal with the horror tropes as they show up everywhere, and are sometimes kind of fun, but when you mix both of these together, and they go on and on, but not always in a good way, I was ready to bang my head against the wall. 

 

I really feel bad about my going off on this book as I really tried to like it which is why I continued with it rather than DNFing it.  The plot itself had a tendency to drag on and relied more on gore rather than scare, neither of which were done effectively.  Again, the atmosphere, the setting, and Lauren's little brother were the redeeming features of this book. 

 

Verdict

The Ghost Tree had so much potential, but unfortunately, it didn't live up to the fun horror tropes and eighties nostalgia that it could have.   I am not against taking campy tropes and using them in these types of novels, but when they don't go anywhere, it just leaves you feeling letdown, waiting for that big moment, and then nothing happens.  It was quite easy to figure out who the 'big bad monster' was in this one as the author plays it straight and narrow with no surprising twist that would have been so much fun.  While I don't recommend this book, I do recommend you take a look at some of this author's other works as they are quite interesting, like her Black Wings series and her retelling of Captain Hook called Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook. 

 

 

 

Dear Child by Romy Hausmann

Dear Child

by Romy Hausmann

Release Date: October 6th 2020

2020 Flatiron Books (first published 2019 by dtv verlag)

Kindle Edition; 352 Pages

ISBN: 978-1250768537

ASIN: B082RRG14S

Genre: Fiction / Suspense

Source: Review copy from publisher

4 / 5 Stars

Summary

She says her name is Lena. Lena, who disappeared without a trace 14 years prior. She fits the profile. She has the distinctive scar. But her family swears that she isn’t their Lena.

The little girl who escaped the woods with her knows things she isn’t sharing, and Lena’s devastated father is trying to piece together details that don’t quite fit. Lena is desperate to begin again, but something tells her that her tormentor still wants to get back what belongs to him…and that she may not be able to truly escape until the whole truth about what happened in the woods finally emerges.

 

 

My Thoughts

Dear Child is a psychological thriller about a woman who disappeared over thirteen years ago without a trace, but who turns up in a hospital, with a thirteen-year-old daughter, after a being hit by a car in a remote forest in the middle of the night.  Twisty and edgy, this one kept me guessing until the end.

The plot line is told in multiple POVs: Lena's father, Mathias; Lena; and Lena's daughter, Hannah. There are no chapters in this book and the story just shifts from one POV to another, and can also jump from one time period to another.  The switch between POVs and time periods is quite seamless though, and I had no problem following along as each person had their unique voice and personality, plus each section was labelled by whose voice we heard. 

 

That this story is dark is definitely not in doubt as you can't discuss a missing woman for thirteen years without darkness, but how dark it actually gets is disturbing.  The pacing moves rather quickly, and while there are some disturbing scenes, most of it is left up to the imagination of the reader to understand what really happened in the cabin in the woods.  Unfortunately for me, I have quite a vivid imagination, but I am eternally grateful to the author for not going into graphic detail or I definitely do not think I would have been able to finish this book.  That 'Lena' would have suffered terribly is never in question, and I spent some time after finishing the novel trying to imagine how she could have endured it. But I did have some questions as well as there are loop holes in this story a mile wide; unfortunately, I can't discuss them on here as they are major plot spoilers, but I am itching to discuss them with someone who has read this book.   

One of the main problems I had with this book was with the main character, Mathias.  I don't know if I was supposed to feel sympathetic towards him, but I couldn't; by the end of the book, I loathed him. I understand that he is suffering over the loss of his daughter and doesn't want to hear anything negative about her, but some of the things he did would have been obstruction of justice here in Canada.  I kept forgetting the book is a German translation as the author lives in Stuttgart so the justice system does not work the same way, but the things he did just blew me away.  His character certainly made me think about how well we actually know our own children and how easily we can drive them away by seeing through rose-tinted glasses and not really listening to their needs and their desires.  

I also was not overly fond of Hannah, but for different reasons.  I believe the author did that on purpose to show the reader the effects of isolation and watching one parent abuse another for years can have on their psychological development. Her reactions to things made me shiver as they were so cold and calculating.  

Lena's chapters were absolutely the most interesting thing about this book.  I'll have to stop here though as there are major plot spoilers if I discuss them so you will just have to read the book to understand. However, I will say it was her story that left me with the most questions as it seemed to have the most loop holes. Contrived plot points? Absolutely.  

Verdict

Dear Child was certainly not what I was expecting.  It was a creepy, psychological thriller that I had a hard time putting down, one that was full of twists and turns, even if I was not fond of all the characters.  The ending was a little crazy, and it was certainly not the person I thought it was, but it was an interesting twist, if a little jarring as it came out of nowhere although looking back I do see some of the clues.  If you're looking for something creepy, then I recommend this English debut novel by this author, and I am looking forward to the next psychological thriller.

 

Review: Cut to the Bone by Roz Watkins

Cut to the Bone (DI Meg Dalton, Book #3)

by Roz Watkins

Release Date: June 25th 2020

2020 HQ

Kindle Edition; 384 Pages

ISBN: 978-0008214746

ASIN: B07YN9TRT5

Genre: Fiction / Mystery

Source: Review copy from publisher

2.5 / 5 Stars

Summary

When beautiful young social-media star Violet Armstrong goes missing in the middle of a scorching Peak District summer, the case sparks a media frenzy.

The clock is ticking for DI Meg Dalton and her team to find Violet before online threats explode into real-life violence. And then the blood and hair of a young woman are found in an empty pig trough at the local abattoir…

The more Meg finds out about this unnerving case, the more she becomes convinced that something very, very bad has happened to Violet. With temperatures rising and the press demanding answers, the case is about to take a terrifying turn…

 

My Thoughts

 

Trigger Warnings in this book: Rape, victim shaming, abuse, abduction, incest

 

Cut to The Bone is the third book in the Meg Dalton series, and after I finished it took me awhile to write this review as I really needed to think about it for a while.  At first, I thought it was really interesting because the author's writing style is captivating and has this way of drawing you in, but when I started to think about the themes running through this book, I started to look at it quite a bit differently.  

First of all, I will let you know I am in the minority here with my rating as there are a lot more positive reviews than mine, but I couldn't in all honesty get past some of the issues I had with this book.  While the concept was interesting and the investigation was compelling, I thought the story line was all over the place and the actual police procedural aspect was quite disjointed. 

 

****Spoilers ahead.****

 

One of the issues I had was with the lead investigator, Meg Dalton.  While I liked her and thought she did a good job trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together, I couldn't get past the fact that she was interested in both her partner, and in one of the suspects, romantically.   She kept telling herself this would cloud her judgment about the investigation.  You think?  And the banter between herself and her partner kind of bordered on the unprofessional, especially as she was the boss.  

At first, I really enjoyed the story line and thought it was interesting.  A young girl goes missing in an abattoir, a girl famous for posing in a bikini while barbecuing meat products, and the animal activists go antsy all over the internet sending her death threats and so on.  They descend on the town and protest against the abattoir and the owners. Makes total sense, yes?  Now we get into a Stepford Wives kind of scenario where the town is all fenced off to protect the children and its citizens from getting hurt or from outside influences.  Weird, right? Well, it gets even better. Now let's throw in a story about a Pale Child who roams the forest and when he looks you in the eye, you will die.  Okay, now you've lost me as I thought this was a police procedural, not a paranormal book.  Well, it keeps getting better as the original town was flooded over fifty years ago (can't remember the reason) and every time there's a drought, the Pale Child appears to wreck havoc upon the citizens.  Okay, now you've lost me. Eye roll.

 

And that pretty much sums up what I thought of this book by the time I hit the middle of it.  And while I did enjoy the investigation, I just couldn't get past these elements in the book which essentially ruined it for me.

The story is also told in a dual story line from the present and in 1999 and this is where we learn more about Violet's mother and her friends and what happened over twenty years ago and how it relates to the present murders.  And this is the story line where I couldn't help but roll my eyes so far back into my head I thought they wouldn't come back.  However, for those with triggers, there is also rape and victim shaming in this section so beware. 

 

Verdict

Cut to the Bone had an interesting concept and I will own that the ending caught me by surprise, but I just couldn't get past some of the other elements in this book.  When you add in the story of the Pale Child and the town scenarios, plus the dual story line, I think I finished it out of pure stubbornness.  I just couldn't connect with the characters and the storyline and this made me sad as I really, really wanted to enjoy this book, but it just wasn't for me.  While I can't really recommend it, I will say you need to read it for yourself as you may get a different perspective than I did, and like I said, there are many good reviews about it.  Will I read another book by this author? Yes, as I like her writing style and I did like the investigation, but if there is another Pale Child in another book, I will be done.

 

Review: No One Saw by Beverly Long

No One Saw (A.L. McKittridge, Book #2)

by Beverly Long

Release Date: June 30th 2020

2020 MIRA

Softcover Edition; 384 Pages

ISBN: 978-1488056130

ASIN: B07VQNMJH4

Genre: Fiction / Mystery

Source: Review copy from publisher

3.5 / 5 Stars

Summary

Baywood police department detective A.L. McKittridge is no stranger to tough cases, but when five-year-old Emma Whitman disappears from her day care, there isn’t a single shred of evidence to go on. Neither the grandmother who dropped her off, nor the teacher whose care she was supposed to be in, can account for the missing child. There are no witnesses. No trace of where she might have gone. There’s only one thing A.L. and his partner, Rena Morgan, are sure of—somebody is lying.

With the clock ticking, A.L. and Rena are under extreme pressure as they discover their instincts are correct: all is not as it seems. The Whitmans are a family with many secrets, and A.L. and Rena will have to race to untangle a growing web of lies if they’re going to find the thread that leads them to Emma…before it’s too late.

 

My Thoughts

No One Saw is the second entry in the McKittridge series and I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than the first book in the series.  There was much more depth to this book, both in the story and in the character development, and since this is a book about child abduction, I definitely appreciated how the author handled the sensitivity of the topic in this book.  Murder mystery books about children always make me apprehensive.

 

First of all, I really enjoyed the character development in this book, much more than in the first book.  A.L. was a much more developed and interesting character who finally found something to enjoy outside of his job, and even enjoyed himself on a trip.  The secondary story line with his daughter about that whole trip was fun and I liked the exploration into family units and family dynamics that went into that little story as it gave you a chance to learn more about A.L. and the relationships he has with his ex-wife, his daughter and his new girlfriend.  That whole story line also led into one of the main themes of this book, lying.  It was lies and untruths that led many of these characters to do some of the things they did and I found the unweaving of all of that quite fascinating.

 

However, I do wish the author spent time developing her secondary characters  and giving them more of a personality.  Furthermore, the main detectives could be a bit egotistical at times, and I did start to get irritated with the female detective, or rather the author's development of her character and the whole 'baby' issue. I have no issue with her wanting to have a baby and the desperation she feels, but she is definitely much more than that and that is where I have a problem, when the author decides her value lies in that.  

 

This book had many more layers to it than the previous book and I appreciate the effort the author put into developing a more complex story.  The story line was interesting and I really do enjoy police procedurals as it's like peeling back the layers of an onion. However, while there were a few surprises in terms of certain characters' motivations, I wasn't surprised when it came to the unveiling.  And while the first half of the book was suspenseful, the second half felt like the author had to throw in a bunch of red herrings to keep the reader off the scent of the trail and lead the detectives on a merry chase, and this is sort of where she lost me a little bit.  I definitely like it when an author leaves it up to the reader to try to figure things out and doesn't try to explain everything, but when you get frustrated over detectives making stupid choices, it leaves a bad feeling in your mouth.  

 

Verdict

No One Saw was much more thought-provoking and interesting than the first book in this series, and while the main characters were more developed, I wish the author had spent time developing her secondary characters a bit more.  And while I enjoy this author's writing style as she doesn't give away a lot of information and leaves it to the reader to figure things out, the second half of the book really slowed it down for me as if the author understood the reader could figure out who did it and needed some red herrings to stop the reader from figuring it out, but it didn't work.  You could read this as a standalone if you wish, and I will definitely be taking a look at the next book in the series when it is released as there was enough of interest in it for me to continue the series.    

 

 

 

Happy New Year!

 

http://www.quoteszoomin.com/2020/12/2021-year-affirmations-positive-quotes.html

Merry Christmas!!

 

Review: Beach Read by Emily Henry

Beach Read

by Emily Henry

Release Date: May 19th 2020

2020 Berkley

Kindle Edition; 384 Pages

ISBN: 978-1984806734

ASIN: B07XNKRV83

Genre: Fiction / Romance / Contemporary

Source: Review copy from publisher

3 / 5 Stars

Summary

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They're polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

 

My Thoughts

Beach Read was a fun, easy read, but it was simply that.  After reading the description, I thought there would be more, maybe much more of an electric enemy to friendship to lover scenario, but while the friendship developed nicely, I didn't really feel that zing or zap I would have expected.  This is not a genre I read a lot of although I did go through a huge phase as a teenager (I mean, who doesn't?), but I would think there would still be that sexual tension that should exist between two people. I was a little sad about not liking it as much as other people did as the scenario seemed right up my alley; I mean who doesn't love a book about books and authors?

 

I will admit that I am not really all that into romance stories so maybe I am biased in that regard.  I enjoyed the earlier and the later parts of the the book as they were much more interesting, but I will admit I thought the middle section lagged a little bit.  It wasn't that it wasn't interesting, but you can only read so much about them looking at each other through their windows and writing cute notes to each other before you want to actually read about something happening, or see some dialogue, you know? I did like seeing how they each approached their own writing though as that kind of thing fascinates me as a writer myself. It would have been nice to see exactly what the two characters wrote though, as not a lot of detail was mentioned about their own books.  That was disappointing. 

 

I do feel like the author didn't really know where she wanted to take this novel in terms of plot though as it seemed like it was all over the place.  Was it supposed to be light and fluffy or dark and serious? Hard to say as both themes kind of ran contradictory to themselves.  You've got the two main characters sharing banter and spending time together writing their novels, but then you have January discovering this dark secret about her dad and Gus doing research on another dark and disturbing topic. There is nothing wrong with having all of these themes running through a romance novel, the problem lies when the author doesn't know what to do with those themes, and this is exactly what happened here.  All of a sudden, everything starts resolving itself, with little explanation, writer's blocks are fixed, books are finished within the time lines, and are sold with little problem. Whoa, wait! What happened?  Maybe that's why I don't read a lot of romance?

 

I also really liked January as a character (second book this year with a main character named January, love it!!!) as she was funny, witty, and vulnerable.  Gus though, was a bit pretentious and annoying, a bit too stereotypical a man for my liking.  He doesn't believe in romance or romance novels and thinks those types of novels are not great writing.  

Verdict

Beach Read is definitely the book for you if you want something that is light and summery.  January was far more appealing a character than Gus who was aloof and then took chivalry to annoying levels towards the end. I do feel like the author had too many threads going in this story and didn't quite know what to do with all of them so the story felt disjointed and definitely rushed towards the end.  I do feel like this book was over-hyped in its marketing, but I'll leave you to judge for yourself.