As the story unfolds, Carrie has just arrived in a small town where here grandparents live and work as farmers, and she is expected to spend the summer. A town that’s only claim for fame is the Ax Murder House, which is actually a real thing. A myserious, chilling breeze blows past her. She has the feeling of someone watching her, but when she looks around she is alone. I admit this very brief introduction to the story had me intruiged. In my head I could hear the theme from The Twilight Zone.
It starts off promising, but quickly shifts when the storyline goes from creepy to a girl about to start her senior year of high school. I didn’t expect the 180. Carrie is an angsty teenager, livid that her father left her mother for a younger woman. This is the reason why she is sent to live with her grandparents; they need time away from her to work out the details of their divorce. Honestly, I didn’t care about her emotions gone wild and the overflow of anger and unforgiveness. It took away from what I thought was a potentially chilling tale. I wanted to know about this eerie breeze that wafts past her every time she leaves the house. Thankfully, her grandparents are in a few scenes that are amusing. Mostly, Carrie doesn’t stay home, after all she’s a moody teenager, and once she meets the adorable Lucas, the grandparents fade away for the most part.
Initially, I had hopes for Mike, who is her age and works for her grandfather. He has his sights set on Carrie, but there is no way for him to compete with Lucas, who keeps hanging around. He’s just an interesting side character that drifted away and I feel he deserves at least a mention. She passes her time working in her grandmother’s antique shop, where she meets Lucas and suddenly loses the ability to talk, she is that overcome with teenage love. Keep in mind, she’s a high school girl, so she acts like one. This does not mean that I want to hear any more school-girl-crush inner dialogue about the amazing Lucas and how she can’t bear to be away from him. I rolled my eyes a lot during this part.
Lucas is an odd one with a lot of secrets. The town is odd with a whole heap of secrets, too. He takes her to dinner and she notices that he doesn’t really eat anything. He takes her out to look at the stars, but there’s no real conversation. Eventually, she figures out he’s a ghost. No, really. Apparently, he’s looking for his soul and is earth-bound until he does. Once he meets Carrie, though, that becomes less important. Who needs a soul anyway? To keep it interesting, when he died he lost his memories and has no clue where to find it. Again, it’s not as important as Carrie. I was disappointed that there was no resolution in this department. I thought he would decide that she was enough or that some memory would come back and he would at least have a general idea of where to find it. Neither happens in this book.
Rather suddenly, Carrie finds out that not only are ghosts real, but so are werewolves, vampires, demons, witches, and, of course, angels. This story runs the gamut. After this realization, she has plenty of her own paranormal secrets. There is a lot of talk about her dreams, which show some kind of “reality”, but I actually wasn’t that interested. Overrall, I was bored. Towards the end of the book, they are chased by a couple of gnarly demons, but even that was ho-hum.
For my rating:
- Genre and general audience – I can’t quite place the genre; it doesn’t fit into any category. As for audience, it felt very young adult.
- Level of sexuality – There was no sex, but lots of cuddling, kind of like a pair of puppies. She wants more, but he acts as though the idea never occurred to him.
- Graphic language – Nope. Think young adult.
- Did I cry – Not at all.
- Is this part of a series – Yes. The Soul Series. Hopefully, he’ll remember something or choose to spend his days with his true love.
- Level of character development – none that I could see.
- How hard did I laugh? A few chuckles.
It wasn’t great, but I could tell that the author really tried, so I give it ⭐️⭐️ stars.
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