After two books, I'm starting to get a feel for Marcus Kliewer. His stories never make much sense, there's a real dearth of anything resembling an explanation, but you sure do feel a compulsive need to turn the pages.

Before we begin, a confession. I'm not much of a horror girlie. I can count on two hands the number of books I've read in the genre. And when it comes to horror films, you can forget about it. I'm either cowering in the corner as the eerie music plays, or I'm hiding behind my hands while making my husband narrate the whole thing. So when I pick up a horror book, it's with much trepidation and a commitment to only read during the daylight hours. But you know what, I never have to worry with Marcus Kliewer, because his book just aren't that scary.

The Caretaker has an interesting enough premise. Macy needs money desperately, so she answers an ad for housesitting. For only three days of work, she can make nine thousand dollars. Sure, the house is isolated and it gives off weird vibes and she doesn't really know what her duties are. But how hard can it be? Well, you know what they say about something being too good to be true, so Macy's definitely in for a rough time.

I thought the initial chapters were fantastic. The introduction of the house and the Carnswels and the caretaker job were all steeped in creepy, mysterious vibes. There was this feeling that we were building up to something big, something that was going to knock my socks off.

But then we come to the actual meat of the story itself, which is the eponymous caretaker job. Turning lights on and off, catching rabbits, staying awake through the witching hour. For every task, there was Macy, almost getting it, but oh no, messing it up at the very last moment. And every time she messes up, she must await further, ever more kooky instructions in order to make it right. And lo and behold, she does not complete a single task correctly. And so the cycle repeats.

Sigh. Is turning lights on and off that scary or interesting? Unfortunately, no. What about chasing down rabbits, or hiding from people knocking on your door? Also, no. They feel more like chores that need to be done, and wacky ones at that. After a while, I felt the urge to laugh more than anything else, because how many random things can poor Macy be made to do for the sake of this story?

But no worries, folks, I hung on, cause surely there must be some amazing reveal or explanation that will make this choreful journey worthwhile. But alas, Marcus Kliewer, you got me good there. Cause not only did the strange chores take up pretty much the entire rest of the story, but you just ended things with no real explanation or wrap up.

I should've known. These are all the same issues I had with Kliewer's previous book. All this great buildup and nothing really comes of it. His books feel like they are more targeted towards the film medium. While this sort of open-endedness might work for movies, it doesn't really work for books, at least in my humble opinion.

I don't want to sell the story short. It has a compulsive readability that rivals the best of thrillers, and I certainly kept going until the very last page. But without any real explanation or ending, I just can't find satisfaction.

Horror, maybe more than any other genre, feels so diverse in reactions and opinions. What works for one reader may or may not work for another. So if you're at all curious about Kliewer, you should give him a try. Between his two books, I would say I enjoyed this one a little bit more than his debut. So my recommendation is to start here and see if Kliewer's brand of horror works for you.

Readaroo Rating: 3.5 stars

Choo choo! Bet you won't be thinking about toy trains the same way after reading this.

When it comes to thrillers, I'm always on the lookout for a few things—a premise with a good hook, execution that really brings the story to life, characters with tons of depth, and the sort of immersiveness that'll turn hundreds of pages into a one-sit read. And this book had it all, my friends.

Annie has been through a tough year. Between losing her husband to a car accident and suffering a career tragedy, she could really use a change of pace. So when the opportunity comes up to move to a small town outside the city for the summer with her son Charlie, she jumps at it. Charlie soon finds a train set in the locked shed out back, and lo and behold, odd things start happening.

First of all, I have to mention how comforting and nostalgic the vibes in here were. The story takes place in the early 2000s, before smart phones and screens were ubiquitous, so kids and adults hung out with each other and played with their physical toys (imagine that). You add in the bikes and jigsaw puzzles and of course the eponymous train sets, and surely every reader would be transported to that time.

From the very first moment I opened this book, I was immediately and decidedly sucked into the tale. Some books, it feels like you have to work so hard for a long time just to get to the point where you can feel like you're into it, but no such hard work needed here. I slipped seamlessly into this world and was thoroughly riveted.

When you compare the style of this book to a lot of modern thrillers, the two honestly feel so different, they might as well be completely separate genres. Modern thrillers tend to favor short chapters, with characters acting as crazy as possible, and an endless parade of outlandish twists and turns, all in the hopes of bamboozling you into a dopamine daze so you won't notice the lack of good writing and a good story. Thankfully, we don't have any of that here.

The attention to character development and longer chapters means I have time to really sink my teeth into this dark and entertaining story. This is a dual point of view and timeline, but it doesn't feel we're being yanked back and forth because each portion has many pages and chapters to breathe and develop before we have to switch our focus to another.

On the whole, I'm not a huge horror reader, but when I want horror, this is exactly the type I enjoy. It's dark, but not so scary that it will keep me up at night peering into every shadow and corner. The darkness merely adds to the entertainment of the whole thing, making it feel even more delightful and unputdownable.

I totally recommend this if you're in the mood for some (dare I say) cozy and old school horror/thriller, kind of in the vibe of Stephen King from back in the day. And bonus points if you're craving some early 2000s nostalgia and you're reading this during the spooky season.

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

You are the first delivery of human pioneers to Mars. There is no going back. . . . You must continue.

Let me first pause and take a deep breath, because what the heck did I just read? I'm always looking for that perfect Mars exploration story—you know, the one where astronauts land on the red planet and strange things start to happen—and wow, did this deliver. I feel like I've been walloped, again and again, and I loved every second of it.

I was drawn to this book initially because the blurb mentioned locked-room mystery set on Mars, and of course, I tripped all over myself trying to get my grabby hands on it. But to call this a mystery is to sell the story short. It is that, but also so much more.

We slip seamlessly into the mind of Dana Gold as she comes out of deep sleep, one of three astronauts aboard the vessel that's about to deliver them onto Mars. Bots have been sent ahead to build the habitat that will be their forever home and to welcome them onto this desolate planet. But they've lost communications with the bots, and that's only the beginning of their troubles.

This tale grabbed me immediately. The science fiction component is so interesting and unique. The worldbuilding isn't centered around technology, but rather, there's a lot of humanity woven into it. The bots are made by humans and are therefore in our likeness, even if their makers didn't intend for that to happen. And so the evolution and the interaction of the bots is a fascinating and crucial focal point of the story.

But if you're not usually a reader of science fiction, don't let the setting scare you away. The backdrop of Mars is simply the starting point from which this story can take off. It isn't about Mars or space or robots. It's about humans and what we would do when pushed to the limit.

The horror element comes on slowly. We see Gold's thoughts and emotions as things start to go wrong. The horror isn't in the physical, but rather the psychological. There is a lot of exploration about where horror comes from, if it is within us humans and we manifest it in ourselves and the things we build, or if it comes from outside sources, both the known and the unknown. It gave me the chills, and I found it to be absolutely fascinating.

Because this is a novella, there is an economy to the writing that makes every moment count. We don't get mired in unnecessary explanations, we don't get stuck in overly emotional ruminations. We go from scene to scene, each one so propulsive, so tautly suspended, it felt like I was holding my breath the whole time.

I honestly haven't been this excited about a sci-fi and horror blend in a long time. The only thing is, after reading this, I'm definitely giving up my dreams of becoming an astronaut and ever going to Mars.

Readaroo Rating: 5 stars!

I mean, if weird stuff starts happening in your house, the right thing to do isn’t to make your guests leave. It’s to get the heck out of there yourself, you know what I'm saying?

So this was an interesting read for me. It was both more and less than what I was expecting it to be, so let me try to get all my thoughts down here.

First, I honestly thought this would be more scary than it turned out to be. People were saying this was one of the most terrifying books they've ever read, it was nightmare inducing, they had the living daylights scared out of them, yada yada yada. So I psyched myself up (which honestly took more than a year because I'm a big scaredy cat when it comes to horror) and braced myself every which way. And then, nada.

I wasn't scared. I felt as cool as a cucumber throughout the entire read. I don't know, you guys. Maybe I'm not a scaredy cat and am actually a stone cold reader? Or maybe this story wasn't that scary. At most, I would say it was mildly spooky/creepy, but that's from the vibes more than anything plot related.

For me, scariness doesn't come from water dripping, mislaid furniture, and random doors opening and closing. There's nothing inherently scary about those things. I think those elements would work better for me in a movie (which I see is in this book's future) because they would engage more of my senses, but on the pages, I'm mostly just like, okaay?

I do wonder if my fear (or lack thereof) was also being trounced by my overwhelming annoyance at the main character. Eve is the epitome of people-pleasing and unable to stand up for herself, so she's constantly doing things that she doesn't want to do and shouldn't do. You add in all the hems and haws and bad decisions, and it was just really painful. I kept shouting at her in my head to be strong and smart, but no such luck. To be fair though, if she were, we probably wouldn't have a story at all.

Now, let's talk about how open-ended this book is. I think as a reader, you're probably going to fall into two camps. Either you enjoyed the whole thing so much that you don't really mind there's no sufficient explanation or even conclusion to this, or it would very much annoy the heck out of you. For me, I was quite taken aback by how little was explained.

Again, here, I think this would've worked better for me in a movie. In fact, we've seen this a lot with horror film franchises, where the unnamed malevolent force comes back again and again, terrorizing yet another set of unsuspecting characters in each new installment, with no real wrap up or clarifications given at the end. But on paper, it just feels incomplete. Books don't generally follow that style, so I can't help but want more.

Still, even with all my grousing, this managed to entertain me. The concepts in here are compelling and they're put together in clever ways. The writing style is engaging and the story certainly goes by quickly.

All in all, I think if you're a fan of the genre, this should at least scratch the itch even if it doesn't blow any socks off. I would just set expectations correctly going in about exactly how terrifying it is and how much explanation you're going to get, and that would be not too much on both fronts.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

There was a time back in the day when I couldn't get enough of space adventures. I remember being in college, going to the library with every intention of studying for a final, then promptly picking up a Mars exploration/first contact novel sitting right there in my line of sight. Needless to say, I got not a lick of studying done that day, but I did have a wildly entertaining time.

So picking up The Last Astronaut was a no-brainer for me. Here comes an unusual object, heading directly our way. Is it an asteroid? A comet? But no, lo and behold, it's alien technology. Our only course of action is to send up some astronauts to meet and greet this object and hopefully convince the aliens not to annihilate us.

This has all the bones of a rip-roaring space adventure. The premise is fascinating, the action nonstop, and the stakes could not be higher. David Wellington's plot-driven writing style pairs well with this sort of tale, and before long, I'm sucked into the narrative.

I loved all the developments in here, especially when it came to the aliens. Even being quite familiar with this genre going in, I still feel like there were a lot of surprises in store for me. Everything came together seamlessly and with so much satisfaction, I have to give kudos to the author for having thought it all up.

But story's pacing was quite uneven, and it almost did me in a few times. Yes, there were many exciting moments, but they were often sandwiched between many excruciatingly slow and plodding ones. Each of the "excursions," in particular, felt like thousands of pages long. There were moments when I thought I'd read a hundred pages, only for the page count to tell me it was more like ten.

I feel like this was a case where the story, in its effort to immerse the reader and convince us that everything was indeed real, spent too much time on every minutiae of detail and not enough time on the truly revelatory moments. As a result, the exciting bits passed by in the blink of an eye, while the tedious ones (of walking, climbing, crawling, running) seemed to go on and on.

With regards to the characters, I'll say this — if Earth were really under attack from aliens, I'm not sure this group of astronauts and government officials would be the ones I'd want to save us all. They were not the brightest bulbs in the shed, and a lot of the issues that arose came directly from their collective poor planning and inability to communicate.

Still, I can't deny that this story had its moments of fun and excitement. I would recommend it, but maybe only to a select audience. If you're an avid fan of first contact stories, this is well worth a spot on your TBR. If not, then you can probably safely skip this.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

I try to approach books with minimal expectations. After all, there's nothing more disappointing than going into a much-hyped book with glee and coming out with vague puzzlement about whether we all read the same book. But try as I may, I often can't help myself. The heart wants what it wants, for why else would I be reading in the first place if not to be blown away?

And so I cracked open Hidden Pictures with my usual mix of tempered yet hopeful anticipation, waiting to see which way this book would fall. And I tell you, I knew from almost the very beginning. I was only four pages in when I dropped my library ebook, ran out to my local bookstore, and bought a physical copy so that I could own what I hoped would be a new favorite. And I was right.

Talk about a riveting experience. From the first page to the last, this book had me hooked. I didn't just read it, I inhaled it. The pages slipped through my hands and before I knew it, hours had passed. It's exactly the sort of immersiveness I love and crave in a story.

There is so much tension in here, my spine tingled from it. It was the perfect mix of spooky (not too much), thrilling (very), and mystery (puzzling), and I just ate it up. The mystery, in particularly, was compelling and fun, and I totally enjoyed armchair detecting along with Mallory as she tried to figure out what was going on.

The use of drawings in here has to be a stroke of genius. They are such an integral part of the story and added so much to the spooky ambience. It made it feel like I was reading something special and inimitable. And—let's be honest—even though we're all grownups, I bet we still get pretty excited when we see illustrations in our books, amirite?

That isn't to say this book is without flaws. In terms of sheer funness, the first half of the book definitely has the second half beat. That's probably because setting up a story isn't quite the same as finishing it. So as we start to approach the denouement with all of its twists and turns, there was a noticeable change in the vibe of the story. It went from the perfect amount of spine-tingling thrill to more of eyebrow-raising crazy chaos.

Which brings me to the question: can a story have too many twists? I think so, and I think that's what happened here. The main mystery is already interesting enough, but I think this book went a bit overboard as it wrapped everything up. The twists piled upon twists at the end started to max out my dopamine receptors, and all I felt was numbness in the face of so much mayhem.

But those are minor quibbles in the overall scheme of how much I enjoyed this story. In fact, I had so much fun that if I'm ranking books based solely on that criteria, this would have to be near the top. Just for that alone, and for how memorable it is, it gets all 5 stars from me.

Readaroo Rating: 5 stars!

I love books that make me work hard to get into them, said no reader ever. So it's with great relish (and relief) that I turned to the first page of Vampires of El Norte and was immediately sucked in.

What an incredibly vivid tale this turned out to be. The historical, horror, and romance components really gelled cohesively together and produced a story that is both rich in content as well as atmosphere.

There is so much goodness here, so much that kept me turning the pages. Nena and Nestor's love for their country, their home, and each other. The monsters, both human and not, that are trying to take it all away. And the setting against the backdrop of the Mexican–American War. I couldn't look away.

I thought the horror element was particularly well done. The way the vampires were portrayed was creepy without being too scary, thoroughly fascinating, and surprisingly humane and redemptive. It made me feel hopeful at the end, which isn't something a lot of horror books manage to do.

You can tell that Isabel Cañas put a lot of work into researching all the historical details in here. As a result, the setting feels as authentic as can be, transporting the reader to 1840s Mexico. The time and place flow effortlessly from the pages, allowing the narrative to really shine through.

As for the romance, it started out really strong, with tons of pining vibes that I can totally get behind. And it certainly ended strong the way a good romance should. But the middle there with all that parental disapproval and cowing before them and waffling back and forth? I definitely felt the angst and the melodrama of it all. But maybe this is just a case of me not being a fan of the rich girl/poor boy trope more than anything else.

Small quibbles aside, this was a heck of an interesting read. I was drawn in and held captive by the writing, the atmosphere, and the story within. I'll definitely need to check out more from Cañas.

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

When it comes to horror, I'm not looking to have the bejesus scared out of me. Yes, you read that correctly. I am in fact a big ol' wimp and I'm not afraid to admit it. You can judge all you want, you horror junkies, but my bar is somewhere around reading Goosebumps and having nightmares afterwards.

So it's no surprise that I hemmed and hawed when it came to reading this book. Could I handle it? Is it too scary? Would I have nightmares for weeks and live to regret it? I even asked the person who knows me best what he thought, and my husband so helpfully put it in tennis terms that I was trying to make an unforced error.

But something about this book called to me, and I just couldn't let it drop. And I'm so glad I went for it. Because not only did it not scare the bejesus out of me, but I actually had the most ridiculously good time with it.

When Margaret and her husband Hal first came upon that beautiful Victorian house, they couldn't believe their luck. But soon after moving in, they began to realize why it had been sitting empty for so long. And slowly but surely, things reach a fevered pitch every September. While Margaret loves the house quirks and all, Hal can't take it anymore. Soon after he leaves, Margaret's daughter Katherine shows up looking for her missing father. But what Katherine doesn't understand is that her being there and poking around is making things so much worse.

Let me just say right now, The September House isn't like any other horror book I've ever encountered. The tone isn't dark and depressing as all heck. Instead, there's this levity that makes it so much fun. Maybe that tone isn't quite the norm when it comes to this genre, but I certainly didn't mind and I'm glad the author chose to take it in that direction. It makes an otherwise inaccessible genre feel entertaining and delightful (words I never thought I'd associate with horror).

Most books of this genre take their mission to scare the reader very seriously, almost to their detriment. The protagonist (always a female) is made to jump and squeak and whimper at every dark corner, shadow, and small noise that emanates in their vicinity, as if their fear would somehow translate onto the reader. But instead of adding to the atmosphere, it just makes me roll my eyes. After all, if such simple things could send our protagonist into a tizzy, then how could they possibly handle the really scary stuff? Thankfully, this book does not fall into such a trap.

Margaret is the most strong and competent heroine I have ever come across in a horror book. Nothing fazes her. Not blood running down her walls, not apparitions that appear and try to bite her, and certainly not unspeakable evils in her basement. She just carries on with conviction and all her wits about her, and it's a breath of fresh air, I tell you.

This book has the feel of a thriller, meant to keep the reader engaged and turning the pages. There are interesting developments along the way that you don't see coming, and the overall progression of the story arc is both surprising and satisfying.

That isn't to say there aren't moments of seriousness and fear, but they did not overwhelm the scaredy-cat in me. Rather, the built-in comedic relief and the strong female protagonist both helped to offset the fright, and turned this into a horror story I could actually enjoy.

Now after such an unexpected experience, I'm left wondering if horror is really my long-lost favorite genre after all?

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

Conceptually, Sign Here has potential. But the execution makes it feel like several disjointed stories instead of one cohesive whole.

In one storyline, we follow Peyote, a dealmaker from Hell whose job is to sign as many souls into Hell as possible. He is forced to work with Cal, another dealmaker, but they are keeping secrets from each other. In another storyline, we follow the Harrison family as they go to their summer house for their annual vacation. But secrets abound there too.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this. At first glance, the Peyote and Cal storyline seems the more interesting one. But it wasn't. It felt like it was trying too hard, with a fluffed out story that wasn't really relevant and lots of dark humor that came across as more forced than anything else. The more details we're given about Hell, the less believable it became and the less into the story I got.

We also spend a lot of time on Cal's backstory, which left me more confused than anything else. (Is The General her father, or just a father figure? Where did the brothers or "brothers" come from? What were they actually doing?) I pretty much didn't understand anything related to Cal, and every time we switched to her story, I felt the urge to skim.

The Harrison storyline was more interesting. It's a combination of family dysfunction and coming of age, with a dose of mystery thrown in. But it also had some of the same issues as the other storyline, coming across as trying too hard to be deep and poignant, which ultimately made what could've been an intriguing tale into an overwritten one.

The thing is, these two storylines don't really go together. They're pretty much two completely separate stories, with only like one page of overlap between them. So their interweaving, back and forth, with a few pages spent on one and then a few pages spent on the other, doesn't really pull the whole thing together.

I feel like this was a bit of a missed opportunity. There's a lot of potential here, but at 400 pages, it was about 100 pages too long. With some choice editing, this could've easily been a gripping tale. But as it stands, it feels too convoluted, confusing, and indulgent to be anything other than middling.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

This was a pick for my Book of the Month box. Get your first book for $5 here.

DNF - And another one bites the dust.

I've been trying to get into this book, on and off, for weeks now, and it's not working. By all accounts, everyone loves it and finds it riveting. Then I come along, and of course, I'm an outlier.

There's something about the combination of the writing and the story that just doesn't grab me. The writing style feels formulaic, with lots of mundane dialogue and descriptions, all to give atmosphere, but I don't feel it. Instead, it comes across as very predictable and fluffed up to me. I always prefer writing to be content-dense, but this is very much the opposite.

The story itself is rather bland. It's supposed to be a ghost story, yet I don't feel any chills or creepy vibes. In fact, I fell asleep twice reading it so far, which is my bar for moving on.

So there you go. I've given Simone St. James two tries so far. I read The Sun Down Motel all the way through and felt very much humdrum about it too. So I'm going to chalk this up to the author not being for me and part ways.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars (DNF)

After thoroughly enjoying The Last House on Needless Street, I was excited to see what else Catriona Ward has up her sleeve. But after finishing Sundial, I'm not sure I totally got it.

On the surface, Rob has the family she's always dreamed of: a husband and two beautiful daughters. But when her eldest daughter Callie starts acting strange and her husband seems to encourage it, Rob decides the best thing for everyone is to take Callie to Sundial, the desert town where she grew up. She left Sundial many years ago, swearing never to go back, but now she suspects it will give her the answers she's been looking for.

This was a really uneven reading experience for me. Initially, I had a lot of trouble getting into the story. There was something about the style that came across a bit awkward, with its abundance of odd phrases and metaphors and even characters. I think this is done on purpose to give the narrative a sense of discordance, but it made it hard to follow. It wasn't until the halfway point that I felt like I was finally invested enough in the story to want to continue.

There's a lot going on in here, maybe too much. What at first seems like a dysfunctional family story quickly morphs to include spousal and child abuse, animal abuse, infidelity, scientific experiments gone wrong, ghostly interactions, and lots of maggots. I'm a simple girl, and all of this put together confused me a bit. At times, I wasn't sure what exactly was going on or what the focus was supposed to be.

There is even a story within the story. It is a completely separate thing, but it uses the same names as the characters in our main story. If you're scratching your head like, What? you're not the only one. I'm not afraid to admit I was really befuddled. Even though it was only a few pages here and there, it didn't feel necessary and could've easily been left out.

That isn't to say I didn't enjoy the story because there were parts that really grabbed me. But as a whole, it reads more like a first draft instead of a final one. There were lots of interesting ideas, but they don't all seem to congeal into a cohesive narrative that flows and makes sense. Still, I remain a fan of Ward's imagination, and I suspect I'll keep coming back for more.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

My heartfelt thanks for the advance copy that was provided for my honest and unbiased review.

Come With Me starts out so strong. The initial pages grabbed me and pulled me in so much, I thought I had that rare 5-star read on my hands. So the fact that it slid downhill to a 2-star read by the end, well, I'm just as surprised as you are.

On a seemingly regular day, Aaron's life is turned upside down when his wife Allison is killed by a random act of violence. He is overcome with grief and haunted by her loss. When he looks through her belongings, he comes across an unexplained receipt. Before he can move on, he has to get to the bottom of it.

I was riveted at the start. I found the initial chapters to be compelling and heartbreaking. Of course Aaron is consumed with grief and lost in this world without Allison, especially after such an unexpected and tragic death. The writing is atmospheric and full of sadness and longing, and I was totally on board. I also couldn't wait to see what secrets and mysteries Allison was hiding.

But then the story kind of stalled on the atmosphere of grief. I felt like I was just reading the same passages over and over, mostly on how sad Aaron is and how he can't let his wife go. He sees her in all the shadows and corners. He sees her in their closet and in the flickering lights. He sees her in the dark and in the mirror. Yep, I got it.

As for the mystery, it unfolds at a snail's pace with barely any developments. I thought there would be secrets to uncover about Allison, but it turns out she was merely looking into something else. So instead of this being Aaron investigating and putting together clues, it becomes him trying to figure out what his wife knew. He does this by obsessing about her, intuiting stuff from his gut, and proceeding as if whatever he thinks up must be correct. It's like my most hated trope—the drugged up, confused female narrator—has turned into a grief-ed up, obsessed male narrator.

There is also a supernatural element in here, which feels like it was shoehorned into the story. Is it supposed to be scary? I found it mostly annoying because it contributes to the extremely slow pacing of the story. Whenever there could be development, instead we spend many paragraphs on descriptions of lightbulbs flickering and dark shadows in corners, which all turn out to be nothing.

There are also a couple of other things that were really problematic for me. Every time there's a flashback of Allison, I liked her less and less, until I could no longer understand why Aaron even loved her to begin with. To top it off, there's clearly a scene of rape in there that the story just glosses over, as if it should be all right since the two people involved are married.

My other big problem with the storyline is that I'm not a fan of vigilante justice, especially ones that are arrived at via intuition rather than hard facts. There are multiple examples of this in the story, with both Allison and Aaron perpetuating it. And the excuse given is always grief. Spare me, please. Lots of people lose loved ones, yet they manage to continue on their lives without beating up or killing people.

This story had so much potential. I just wish it transitioned from a story about grief into the mystery it was meant to be. Instead, we get stuck on the grief, and there just wasn't enough plot advancement or even much sense to sustain hundreds of pages.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars

Can a ghost story be boring? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.

Vivian works the night shift at the front desk of a creepy motel. She sees some ghosts haunting the place and starts digging around. Soon she realizes that some of the deaths around town may be connected. But one night, she disappears without a trace. Thirty-five years later, her niece Carly shows up, hoping to figure out what happened to her aunt. Carly also gets a job as a front desk clerk on the night shift. Soon she's digging around and being haunted by ghosts too.

This story bored me to sleep, literally. The problem is, if you take out the ghosts, not much happens. And the ghosts were mostly only there in the beginning of the story to precipitate the two girls' investigations.

The majority of the story centers around Vivian and Carly, each in their own timeline, putting their lives on hold to bumble around, sticking their noses where they don't belong. In Vivian's case, she zeroes in on a guy solely because she has a gut feeling that he's a bad person. Let's think about this for a second. If he really was the guilty party, then she's going around following a killer. If he's not guilty, then she's just harassing and stalking an innocent person. I know stories have to have some sort of premise in order to tell their tale, but this just stretched beyond credibility.

The two girls' parallel storylines have a lot of overlap, so it often feels like I'm being told something I already know. And it doesn't help that the two women have pretty much the same personality (extremely nosy and weirdly obsessed with digging into people's deaths beyond what is safe or healthy). More than once, I forgot whose point of view I was reading and it didn't really matter.

It's like watching a campy horror movie where you could see the main characters doing one stupid thing after another, and they just get more and more into trouble. And it's not clear why they are doing these things. Both can leave at anytime, especially when weird stuff starts happening. I don't understand their motivations, and it prevented me from connecting with them.

And even when the plot mercifully seems to have wrapped up, it somehow kept going on some more. There were extra unnecessary characters and ghosts who seem to have no purpose other than to make the story longer and more convoluted.

Lots of people loved this book, so this was clearly a case of it not being the right match for me. I trudged on when I should have quit. I thought it would get better, but it never did. I just couldn't get into it. The whole thing was unbelievable, and it exhausted me.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars