The characters all had very quirky personalities and each different in their own way. I also can help the uncanny likeliness of the three main characters to crew members of most haunted: Recent evidence uncovered, however, now points to the sole-surviving family member who called the police. Did this family member really kill his entire family? I enjoyed this book and thought it was a unique premise. The story centers on Maya, whose best friend Aubrey died suddenly while with the guy Maya was dating named Frank. There is something weird and creepy about Frank that Maya can’t put her finger on, but she is convinced he had something to do with the death. 7 years later she sees a video posted online where another woman seemingly just keels over and dies while also in Frank’s presence and Maya knows she has to get to the bottom of what Frank is doing to these people. I'm not sure why I didn't read these to my daughter. I think she had so many books that we just never got around to it.

So thanks to my mad girl crush on Reese that I’ve had since I was a child and she starred in The Man in the Moon, I can’t resist her siren’s song and her (nearly always) awful book choices. In all honesty, I live in perpetual fear that I will miss out on another Paper Palace which earned a rare 5 Star from me and was one of the best things I read that year. Buuuuuuuuut, most of the time they are pretty crappy and this was no exception. Rounding up to three stars as feeling generous. While younger readers will love this, I think it was a bit meh and a tad too cute/tame.Plus the comments on the Germans. Like it was a magical event for them to be in the UK. Um, hello? Airplanes? Smuggling? Boats? It is not as if, just because you are on an island, people cannot find a way in. XD Having said that the book was alright, a reasonably engaging bit of light detective fiction. Entertaining enough, I would say, but not much more. I didn't feel particularly invested in any of the characters so it was left to the plot to jolly us along, which it did enough for me to finish it. The narrator's alright, too but makes a lot of the characters sound old. Once Maya finally admits to Aubrey the truth behind her relationship with Frank, Aubrey surprises her. She's afraid of him too. Just as the two girls begin to make connections, on that very day, Aubrey ends up dead. How the story starts off, I couldn't help but be reminded of a certain series that has recently just run on television to do with a true story that happened in the 1980's. Whilst the story starts off with similar circumstances, that's where they end. What follows is a crime fiction readers dream.

Maya comes across a YouTube video showing a young woman, sitting in a diner booth, suddenly keel over and die. Sitting directly across from this woman is none other than Frank, the same man who happened to be sitting right next to Aubrey at the time of her death.

Maya wants to be a writer like her father who'd died at a very young age in Guatemala so Maya only has the stories that her mother has told her about her father. At the age of seventeen Maya's best friend (Aubrey) was talking to Maya's ex-boyfriend (Frank) and just dropped over dead, literally. Maya has always believed Frank had something to do with Aubrey's death but she didn't know how he did it and after police investigations they just thought Maya was delusional with grief. I think I was about nine years old when I became fascinated by the spooky world of the paranormal. It was all down to a television show, “Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World” a popular series in the seventies that opened my eyes to the possibility of different worldly realms. That show frightened me to death at times but my mum and I couldn’t help ourselves; we held our breath and each other for twenty-five fascinating minutes. After the show finished, we would talk and talk about ghosts, death and haunted places. I was gripped. Thank you, Arthur! If you’re reading this with children, I highly recommend the audio companion to the book by Cherry Jones. We used it along with the physical books. Cherry does a wonderful job with the audio and even sings along. It really brings the story to life. This story follows Maya. When Maya was a Senior in high school, her best friend Aubrey, died suddenly, mysteriously and with no identifiable cause, directly in front of Maya's eyes. The only other person around, a young man named Frank, fled the scene.

I remembered what I was like as a teenager, nosy and up for an adventure. So the idea of a confident young girl, joined by two friends and her uncle, not forgetting her bulldog Boris (in real life he’s my dog, Watson, and has become part of my investigation team) was irresistible – and I loved writing about them as they began to unravel the secrets of the afterlife, whilst helping some lost souls on the way. The book is one long adventure from beginning to end. I love the spookiness of it all and the way the friends try to help someone who died many years ago. The characters show just what true friendship is about even with their own problems outside of their ghostly activities.I lived the engaging writing , some characters are reliable and the story itself it’s addictive and thrilling. They sneak out to an abandoned house that is rumored to be haunted to play with a ouija board. I mean, what could go wrong, right? Things I didn’t like: last third of the book was vague and a little pointless. The big revelation was way too much far fetched for me. I didn’t buy it! And the conclusion is a little vague, semi satisfying.

She said, “The other day, Mommy, you said to Daddy: I can't get anything on this damn computer to work.” Overall, this was fine as a debut. I can't say I was overly invested with the story or with how unreliable Maya was, but I'm not mad I read it. I wouldn't put this in the thriller category either, a psychological something, not sure what. The love, and friendship, and happiness Laura experiences along with the harsh and hungry winters truly makes for a wonderful story.

Yvette Fielding Press Reviews

Maya is rattled. It seems like proof to her. She always knew Frank did something to Aubrey and now this other girl, this sort of proves it, doesn't it? If I can't find my old books I will definitley buy another collection as I would love to re-read them at some point. This was a book I had high hopes for, but it failed to wow me. I put this in the liked but didn't love category. The author does a good job looking at addiction and memory. This book was atmospheric which I love in books, but again, I thought this was just ok at best. It was a little slow and when the reveal happened, I wasn't overly excited about it. The best part of this book for me was the atmosphere the author created.