Lyss Brewer is starting the new year in a cheap motel with a wrinkled party dress and mascara stains on her cheeks. No job. No money. And as of New Year's Eve: No boyfriend and no place to live.My Thoughts: This is one of those books where I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. The writing was clean and engaging but I never really felt the type of connection to the characters that I was expecting to feel. And just when things look like they're moving in a direction I can get behind, something BIG happened that threw me, as a reader, into a tailspin. Since I try to keep my reviews spoiler free, I'm not going to go into the big happening except to say that it caught me off guard and left me floundering.
Just when everything is going completely wrong, something finally goes right. Lyss is given the chance to start over when she is offered a live-in position at an historic inn. The inn will become her sanctuary, and the colorful characters who work there will become her family. However, Lyss will soon discover that the walls which surround her hold much more than history.
As fear of a serial killer spreads throughout the city of Santa Fe, Lyss begins to wrestle with her own sanity. Is she hallucinating or is she really seeing ghosts? Just when she thinks she's found the connection, her world is turned upside down.
Will Lyss listen to the voices that haunt her? Or will she trust the one person who can't be trusted?
Initially, I started reading this book because I was looking for a haunted house/ghostly happenings story. Yes, I did get that but at the same time, it wasn't quite what I was expecting. I think I was expecting a little more horror and a little less of the slice of normal life that we got. Which is not a slight against the book itself, more a nod to the fact that I like blood and gore.
Anyway. While I liked the backstory on the original happenings in the house/inn and I liked the idea that the ghosts are trying to find someone to listen to them, I was a little thrown by what message the ghosts were trying to convey. I feel like I missed something along the way as to what the ghosts expected Lyss to do. Did they want her help being found or did they just want her to listen to them? I don't know.
Ultimately, while I did like the author's writing style, the big game-changer toward the end of the book left me reeling. Plus, I feel like the ending raised more questions than answers. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since this is the first book in a series, but it did take away from my personal enjoyment.
More books by Sarah Spann
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I dislike big game changers. They are very very chancy, and it's difficult to pull it off successfully.
ReplyDeleteThis one came out of nowhere and it's one of those things that I don't usually care for in books so I had a tough time with it.
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