Practical Amy Goodnight,
together with her absent-minded scientist sister Phin Goodnight, has a
new summer job taking care of her aunt Hyacinth's ranch. However, this
isn't an ordinary farm as all the Goodnights have some sort of psychic
or magical power, and when a malicious ghost starts haunting the ranch,
as well as the ranch belonging to the cute but infuriating cowboy next
door, everyone turns to Amy to vanquish the ghost and save them from his
wrath.
I had this same complaint about The Splendor Falls, and
I'll say it again here. This book had a very slow beginning. Different
details pertaining to the plot were introduced but they didn't inspire
any excitement until the very very end. It wasn't horrible in the
slightest, as Clement-Moore's writing style is extremely entertaining,
but I did have to trudge through to get to the good part. I am not a fan
of ghost stories, but since Clement-Moore takes some of the somberness
out of them and takes them to a place of perfect balance between dreary
and hilarious, I am always willing to read one of hers.
This book
was a semi-predictable whodunit, but I don't have any problems with the
semi-predictable part because I think that was on purpose (or even if
it wasn't, the action was good enough that the story was interesting
anyway).
One thing I loved about the characters in this novel
was how from the beginning, Amy portrayed herself as the normal one, and
despite all her adorable quirks, she still seemed to be the sanest
person around even when she clearly wasn't. It made the first-person
point of view a lot more tangible and at times I almost felt as if I
were Amy.
4.3 stars.
Amy Goodnight knows
that the world isn't as simple as it seems—she grew up surrounded by
household spells and benevolent ghosts. But she also understands that
"normal" doesn't mix with magic, and she's worked hard to build a wall
between the two worlds. Not only to protect any hope of ever having a
normal life.
Ranch-sitting for her aunt in Texas should be
exactly that. Good old ordinary, uneventful hard work. Only, Amy and her
sister, Phin, aren't alone. There's someone in the house with them—and
it's not the living, breathing, amazingly hot cowboy from the ranch next
door.
It's a ghost, and it's more powerful than the Goodnights
and all their protective spells combined. It wants something from Amy,
and none of her carefully built defenses can hold it back.
This is the summer when the wall between Amy's worlds is going to come crashing down.
In
this Jane Austen-like tale written in the 21st century, our heroine,
Althea, is on a mission to (pardon me) keep her castle. Althea, her
mother, her brother, and her two wicked stepsisters live in a
dilapidated castle in the English countryside, and if Althea doesn't
marry rich soon, they will all be homeless. Luckily, Althea is very
pretty, very smart, and very determined to find a rich husband. When the
young handsome rich and title Lord Boring arrives, Althea decides he
would be the perfect man for her to marry. However, there is one big
obstacle in her way in the form of Mr. Fredericks, Boring's friend,
cousin, and business manager who sees right through Althea's plan.
As
a Jane Austen fan, I absolutely adored this book. It was a whimsical
take on Jane Austen, including imitations of many of her characters, yet
it somehow had a modern feel to it. Instead of the hints and innuendos
in Austen's novels, Kindl said everything she wanted to say directly, to
the point where she actually named a character Boring. Boring was a
Bingley-type character, good-looking and well-intentioned, but he had an
edge to him that made him less clean-cut than the Bingley of Pride and
Prejudice. Althea greatly reminded me of Emma (from Emma) who tries to
manipulate and control the lives of everyone else around her while
digging herself a bigger and bigger hole, while Mr. Fredericks was
obviously Kindl's take on Mr. Darcy. The stepsisters were utterly
hysterical and added a Cinderella twist to the whole story.
5 stars
Seventeen-year-old
Althea is the sole support of her entire family, and she must marry
well. But there are few wealthy suitors--or suitors of any kind--in
their small Yorkshire town of Lesser Hoo. Then, the young and attractive
(and very rich) Lord Boring arrives, and Althea sets her plans in
motion. There's only one problem; his friend and business manager Mr.
Fredericks keeps getting in the way. And, as it turns out, Fredericks
has his own set of plans . . . This witty take on the classic
Regency--Patrice Kindl's first novel in a decade--is like literary
champagne!
I dislike writing reviews on
books I didn't like almost as much as actually reading the books. This
book was one that I thought I'd enjoy, and I had every
intention of finishing it until I realized that I had to drag myself to
pick it up and that I had plenty of other books waiting in my bedroom
that I was a lot more interested in.
Lena always knew she was
different, and not only from a gut feeling but from actual physical
proof: she has abnormally large hands and feet. Her father disappeared
years before and there were rumors that he was a goblin from the
mysterious land of Scree. When Lena turns 18 and receives money her
father left for her, she decides to journey to Scree to discover the
truth (or something like that). She ends up in a small town on the coast
and meets a bunch of not so interesting people and stays there for as
long as I had the book open.
I was excited when I started the
book because unlike many others with similar plots, this one actually
moved at the beginning. The problem wasn't the beginning though. Because
the momentum started so early in the novel, I expected the entire book
to run at a high pace but was dismayed to discover that most of the rest
of the book was dreadfully dull. At some point I flipped to the end to
see if that interested me at all but even though the ending did look
interesting, I realized that the author's writing style didn't appeal to
me and despite the intriguing ending, I did not get the extra push from
it that I needed in order to finish the book.
One major
contributor to the intense boringness (is that a word?) of this book was
the author's attention to detail. As an extremely curious person, I
sometimes get annoyed by lack of detail and explanation but McQuerry
explained way more than necessary and provided enough details that not
only could I imagine Lena's world, I was also bored by it.
2.0 stars
On her 18th birthday, Lena Mattacascar decides to search for her
father, who disappeared into the northern wilderness of Scree when Lena
was young. Scree is inhabited by Peculiars, people whose unusual
characteristics make them unacceptable to modern society. Lena wonders
if her father is the source of her own extraordinary characteristics and
if she, too, is Peculiar. On the train she meets a young librarian,
Jimson Quiggley, who is traveling to a town on the edge of Scree to work
in the home and library of the inventor Mr. Beasley. The train is
stopped by men being chased by the handsome young marshal Thomas Saltre.
When Saltre learns who Lena’s father is, he convinces her to spy on Mr.
Beasley and the strange folk who disappear into his home, Zephyr House.
A daring escape in an aerocopter leads Lena into the wilds of Scree to
confront her deepest fears.
