Texas Gothic, by Rosemary Clement-Moore

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.

Keeping the Castle, by Patrice Kindl

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!

The Peculiars, by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

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.