Raised as the daughter of the two most famous paranormal investigators in the world, Maia Peters is dead to any idea involving ghosts, apparitions, or hauntings. She attends the new amusement park Ghost Town, a park designed to scare its patrons to death, only to disprove everything the park throws at her. Everything goes as she expects, but at the end of her visit to the park, she encounters an apparition not fabricated by man. She sees the face of a girl she knows-Jordin Cole-a girl who has asked her is the past to help her delve deeper into the paranormal for a price. Without telling anyone about her encounter, Maia is visited the following day by Jordin's fiancee, who tells her that he cannot contact or find Jordin anywhere. As Maia recounts her past adventures with Jordin, she and Derek delve into the supernatural in ways they never expected they would have to and uncover one of the most elaborate and dangerous plots known to mankind. They must stop it before it takes over the world, but at what cost?
Robin Parrish stays true to himself a fabricates another huge 'what if?' plot that adds to his 100% Elite Rating. It seems second nature for him to write an Elite book, but when will he return to his five star days?
Maia, Derek, and Jordin are all good characters, as usual. Robin Parrish seems to be able to develop good characters in his sleep as he focuses his real attention to a super plot. His villain development has seen better days, but under the circumstances, his choice of a villain was the only logical choice. There are very few characters in this book because it is more of a plot-focused book, but the few character there are Robin developed correctly.
Robin delves into the world of hauntings, ghost, apparitions, and other paranormal claims by sending his characters to some of the most popular "haunted" locations in the world. He does not attempt to build a case for any side of this issue but instead writes an interesting plot. His speculations about the paranormal are eye-opening. As usual, there is a seemingly off-the-wall foundational idea behind this plot that really makes this book worth reading, as is Robin's specialty. However, the only thing that keeps this book from being five stars is an uncharacteristic showdown that does not end originally. This tarnishes Robin's reputation and makes me wonder about him.
Nevertheless, Robin has maintained his 100% Elite Rating because he continuously asks outrageous 'what if?' questions and answers them in interesting ways.
4 stars
A review useful to readers is one that gives an opinion on whether a novel is successful or not in terms of the novel's stated or implied goals. Books are not true-false tests, and to infer that they are by calling a writer's choices "correct" or incorrect is presumptuous. Matthew 7:1 seems appropriate here.
ReplyDeleteI agree wholeheartedly with Matthew 7:1 because I believe every word of the Bible is true. However, I am not judging authors but am stating my opinion, as we are all able to state in this almost free country we live in. We obviously differ in our view of what a book review should be. Where you believe that a review should state whether or not the novel was successful or not according to the novel's stated or implied goals, I believe that a book review is merely the reviewer's straightforward opinion of the book based on some kind of standard they have established for themselves. Again, I am not judging authors but stating strong opinion, which is something people are not comfortable with in the Christian book reviewing world. If one does not state their own opinion, as you did in your comment above, they stand for absolutely nothing. If you feel that my definition of reviewing needs to be challenged, you should make a blog on your own for this sole purpose.
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