Friday, May 8, 2015

Review: Mary Hades by Sarah Dalton

Book Blurb:

Not many seventeen year old girls have a best friend who’s a ghost, but then Mary Hades isn’t your average teenager.

Scarred physically and mentally from a fire, her parents decide a holiday to an idyllic village in North Yorkshire will help her recover. Nestled in the middle of five moors, Mary expects to have a boring week stuck in a caravan with her parents. Little does she know, evil lurks in the campsite…

Seth Lockwood—a local fairground worker with a dark secret—might be the key to uncovering the murky history that has blighted Nettleby. But Mary is drawn to him in a way that has her questioning her judgement.

Helped by her dead best friend and a quirky gay Goth couple, Mary must stop the unusual deaths occurring in Nettleby. But can she prevent her heart from being broken?

The first in a series of dark YA novels, Mary Hades follows on from the bestselling Kindle Single 'My Daylight Monsters'. A spine-tingling tale with romance, readers will be shocked and entertained in equal measure.

My Review:

3 Out Of 5 Stars

Genre: Supernatural, Mystery--

Mary Hades has been out of the mental institute for a while now and is trying to deal with the aftermath of the events that caused her best friend Lacey to die. Mary still sees ghosts, including Lacey who decided to stick around after her death, but nobody knows for fear of thinking Mary is still crazy. Mary’s parents decided to go on a family vacation to escape the memories and wind up at a small village town. But instead of a fun family escape, Mary is sucked into the mystery of a young girl ghost who is killing vacationers and the quiet guy who knows more than he lets on.

I received with this book exactly what I was expecting. It was a supernatural ghost story with a mystery to solve. I liked that I was not caught off guard with some random topic or strange plot twist which I continuously have been recently, so this was refreshing. I went into this wanting a ghost story and I received a ghost story. This is the first book in the series, but after reading this I discovered that there exists a prequel short story that tells about Mary’s stay in the insane asylum and how Lacey died. I wished I had read that first because I had a ton of questions about the past. Keep in mind, this works ok as a first book and stands on its own well enough, but there was back story hinted at that I was intrigued to learn more about.

There were a few things that I feel a little nit picky about like Mary stupidly talking to herself aka Lacey in public. Mary is just recently freed from the institution and does not want to go back, yet she forgets that Lacy is not visible to others and stands around having conversations with her in public. If I did not want to return to the asylum, I would come up with crafty ways to speak with Lacey and not be so obvious. Also, the fact that they have a party on the night that they plan to vanquish the murdering ghost was a little off point. It seems like Mary spends most of the evening making out intensely with Seth before they plan to ghostbust, but I guess to each his own. I also felt that Lacey was kind of a jerk at times, and no I am not talking about her having her moments of uncontrollable ghostiness, but just her natural personality was abrasive. Also, Seth and Mary had a first date where they almost die (and someone else actually does) and a second date where they visit someone who should be dead. I think they should have taken it as a sign and probably just shook hands and parted ways. They were kind of a disaster together.

I did really enjoy the mystery involving the murdering ghosts as well as how she was vanquished (I use the term loosely here). I am also intrigued by the skull faces Mary sees and how she determined that they are a warning sign. I will have to read the prequel to find out that answer I am sure. I liked Mary’s new friend Neil and his protectiveness and fear at the same times, as well as his willingness to go out on a limb and trust Mary when he had no reason to. I hope to see him show up in another book in the series because it would do Mary good to have a living friend as well. This book brought up the question of what would happen to Lacey overtime and I am incredibly curios to see where the series takes that idea.

Overall this was a really good supernatural mystery and I look forward to more adventures with Mary.

I received this title form the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

No comments:

Post a Comment