Tag: ghost story

Review: Year of the Reaper by Makiia Lucier

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Alexis holds Year of the Reaper in front of a plant and a solar-powered metal cactus.

Alexis: 5 ⭐ review!

Year of the Reaper follows Cas, a young lord who is finally on his way home after being held as a prisoner for three years and surviving a plague. When someone targets the royal family, Cas finds himself teaming up with Lena, a historian, to find the mysterious assassin. 

I loved this book! Cas is such a great main character. He’s flawed and scarred from his time as a prisoner, and his story deals with him trying to move on from his past. He also spends time reuniting with his older brother, and I enjoyed their relationship. 

There are so many interesting facets to this story. The story is set in a medieval fantasy world that’s based on both the Pacific Islands and the black plague. While it’s a low fantasy world, Cas is now able to see ghosts—which I read as a symbol/physical manifestation of his survival with the deadly plague. 

A majority of the book also deals with not only the aftermath of the plague, but a long war that has finally come to an end.

The characters are well-rounded, and I enjoyed the dynamic between Cas (grump) and Lena (sunshine). There’s also the “who hurt you?” trope, but it was very well done. My only small critique is that I feel like the title doesn’t fit the story that well.

If you’re looking for a fun, multi-faceted YA fantasy/mystery that also deals with some dark themes and trauma, then I recommend picking this one up!

Review: Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

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A hardcover copy of Under the Whispering Door rests on a deck surrounded by fallen leaves, a window bookmark, and a red holiday Starbucks cup.

Alexis:

Can you believe I managed to find Under the Whispering Door at a used bookstore? You bet I snatched it up the minute I saw it!

I don’t have a single bad thing to say about this book. I loved The House in the Cerulean Sea when I read it; it was such a whimsical and refreshing read. And this one was the same. It deals with some very heavy themes, and the main plotline deals with death, the afterlife, and grief. But Klune’s classic, quirky writing made this book such a joy to read. 

The humor in this book is hilarious, and with much more adult humor than in The House in the Cerulean Sea. I found myself laughing at jokes in nearly every chapter.

The characters are all well-rounded, with bright, distinctive personalities. Wallace, the main character, has a great character arc, after starting out as a workaholic asshole. And of course, the main setting of this book is a tea shop, and as a tea lover, I loved reading about Hugo—a ferryman and the owner of a tea shop called Charon’s Crossing Tea Shop. 

Like The House in the Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door focuses on a found family. Though not quite as unique, with a lot of similarities to the former, this was a 5-star read based on the enjoyability of this book alone.

I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a slow-moving, character-driven, philosophical novel that explores what happens after death, with positive queer rep and dynamic characters. 

VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

TW: Animal death (but not graphic or anything; just in relation to a dog ghost), anxiety, cancer (terminal), child death, death of parent (past, mentioned), depression, heart attack, suicide (mention), murder, outing (mentioned)

Review: Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

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Alexis:

Synopsis: Ghost Wood Song follows Shady Grove, a teenage girl living in rural Florida. Like her father before her, Shady can call ghosts from the grave by playing her father’s fiddle. When her brother is accused of murder, Shady decides to play the fiddle to figure out what really happened, straight from the mouth of the dead.

I really enjoyed the overall Southern gothic vibes of this book. It’s creepy and haunted, dealing with ghosts, an evil figure that rises from the dark, a haunted house, and plenty of death. But in between the dark sections, Waters writes about a teenage girl trying to figure out her feelings for one of her best friends, Sarah, and a boy named Cedar. While I’m not one for love triangles, I found that this one didn’t bother me too much. 

I also enjoyed how Waters wrote about music. All of Shady’s friends play music, too, and I liked hearing about their playing styles; I felt like I learned a lot about bluegrass music. Waters’ love for music shone on the page and through Shady’s character.

My one main critique is that I feel like I didn’t get to know some of the secondary characters as much as I wanted to. We’re told that Orlando is Shady’s best friend, but I feel like he rarely shows up in any scenes. Near the beginning, we’re told what Shady is like from Sarah’s mouth, before I felt like I really knew Shady as a character. Throughout the book, a lot of the characters are kept at a surface level, which is a shame, because I enjoyed all of the characters and wanted to get to know them better.

Despite this, I like Water’s writing style. I enjoyed her imagery and descriptions, and the way she writes about the setting really allows it to come alive on the page. 

If you’re looking for a murder mystery with themes of family, grief, love, and music, with LGBTQ representation, then pick this up!

VERDICT: 👻👻👻👻/5

Review: Florida by Lauren Groff

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Alexis:

I feel like this is the first book I’ve read for fun (even though my professor recommended that I read it) in a while! I just finished Florida by Lauren Groff, which I meant to read all of this past summer because it generated so much hype.

I haven’t read a good short story collection in a while, even though I always find them very helpful in writing my own short stories. But Florida was a great read; I love the way Groff writes about the Florida landscape. Each short story is very grounded in place, especially in the first couple of stories. The way she writes about Florida is nostalgic yet haunting. She really focuses on the amount of snakes and alligators crawling around the swampy landscape.

My favorite stories were “At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners,” “Eyewall,” and “Above and Below.” The first is a coming of age story, full of snakes and snake imagery; the second is a ghost/hurricane story; and the last is about a wannabe professor who finds herself recently homeless.

Most of Groff’s stories lack quotation marks, which adds to the haunting feel of her writing. She definitely has a way with language, and all of her lines feel poignant. Overall, I definitely recommend it!

VERDICT: 5 stars