"Holly Horror" by Michelle Jabes Corpora

 Please don't judge this one by it's title...

Or the pink and purple cover with a skull wearing a bonnet.

If you are looking for a ghost story with Annabel vibes, then you need to read this series!

This series has a haunted house, ghosts, creepy dolls that sing creepy songs, and an evil presence that is just waiting to claim it's next victim. 

Sign. Me. Up.

Sixteen-year-old Evie Archer is trying to pull her life together after her parents' messy divorce.  Her father has flown off to Paris to pursue his art career while Evie, her socially ambitious mother, and her younger brother are forced to sell their apartment in New York and move to Ravenglass, Massachusetts. 

Evie's new home is no posh, sleek apartment. It is a giant, creepy, manor house that has set empty for years and is known as the Hobby House. However, most of the citizens of Ravenglass don't refer to the manor as the Hobby House.

It is the "Horror House". 

Forty years ago, a 15 year old girl named Holly Hobby went missing from the house and despite an extensive search by her family and the police, she was never found. Some people believe she ran away, and others believe that she never left that house.

They were right. 

As Evie tries to settle into her new home and her new life, she feels another presence within the house. A series of disturbing experiences drives Evie to start looking into the dark history of the Hobby House, and she discovers that Holly Hobby wasn't the first girl lost to the Hobby House.

And she may not be the last.

This book has everything you need if you want a great creepy ghost story. The scenes where the hauntings took place were very well written and created the perfect vibe for the story. 

I did get a little frustrated with some of Evie's choices throughout the book. I was literally rolling my eyes at some of her decisions, but I guess there is no story or character grow to be had if the main character always makes the right decisions. 

When I started this book, I had no idea it was part of a series. While the main plot of the story is resolved in this book, there is one major reveal at the end that will have you running to pick up the 2nd book.

"The Longest Night" continues Evie's story and takes us even further back into the history of the Hobby House. This was a great sequel that took some inspiration from Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". Once again, the main plot of the story wraps up in this one, but it is very obvious that there is going to be a third book in the series. 

This is definitely a solid choice for anyone looking for a new horror series. 

Enjoy!

"If I Have to Be Haunted" by Miranda Sun

 

5 Stars!!!

I stayed up way later than I should have to finish this one. 

I'll admit, the cover really sold me on this book. I was definitely in the mood for a fall book with spooky vibes.  Well, the setting is in the fall and there are ghosts in this book but it was not what I was expecting.

I was expecting a spooky rom-com with a cute enemies to lovers style of romance. I was only partly correct, but I  really enjoyed this book.

Cara Tang knows two things:

1. Zach Coleson, the towns perfect, handsome golden boy, is the most irritating and annoying person alive.

2. She can see and talk to ghosts ( Not that she wants to).

Cara is a ghost speaker, like her mother and grandmother before her.  Her grandmother was renowned for her ability and power, but Cara's mother has spent so many years ignoring her gift that she has lost her ability to see ghosts. Now, she wants Cara to follow in her footsteps and leave the family legacy of ghost speaking far behind. 

Cara has always been the dutiful daughter, following her mother's wishes despite her grandmother's ghost constantly encouraging her to embrace her gift. But she has never come close to breaking the promise she made to her mother until she stumbles across the body of the town's golden boy in the woods near her tree house.

Zach Coleson was dead, but he wasn't gone.

If Cara thought Zach was annoying in life, it is nothing compared to him now that he is a ghost.  As the only person who can see or hear Zach's ghost, he has no one else to turn to and he is determined to convince Cara to help him.  As Cara and Zach investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding his unusual demise, they discover a loophole. As a ghost speaker, Cara has the ability to resurrect Zach from the dead, but they will have to embark on a dangerous quest through a parallel world to make that happen. 

As Zach and Cara face constant dangers on their quest, they begin to realize that despite knowing each other for their entire lives, they actually don't know each other at all. Revelations come to light and suddenly they are each seeing another side of the other that they never knew existed. 

And as the danger increases, Cara and Zach will have to answer the question:

Will saving Zach cost Cara her own life? And are they each willing to take that chance?

Overall,  I loved the scenes when Cara and Zach interacted. Even when they were fighting, there was so much tension on the page that I was completely absorbed. Then, during their softer interactions, I loved how they slowly opened up to each other and learned knew aspects of each other's lives. 

Also, this book definitely had more of a fantasy feel than I was expecting. In a weird way it reminded me of the movie "Willow" because of the epic quest, all of the obstacles they had to face, and the new characters that were introduced along the way. 

Finally, the ending of this book is clearly paving the wave for more books in this series, or at least more stories set within this world. I look forward to reading the next one!

"Hatchet Girls" by Diana Rodriguez Wallach

Lizzie Borden took an ax. 

And gave her mother forty whacks, 

And when she saw what she had done, 

She gave her father forty-one.

This book would have made an excellent horror movie!

I love horror stories that are inspired by true events.  I love making connections between the true story and the author's reimagined story as they twist and mold those events into something completely new.

"Hatchet Girls" is based on the real life events of the Borden family.  The Borden family was a rich and prosperous family, but not a very happy one. Andrew Borden, the father and family patriarch, was a somber and tight fisted man who like to control his money and his family. His first wife passed away when his two girls were quite young, and he eventually remarried a woman named Abby. 

No one really knows what happened that fateful day, but the popular belief is that Lizzie Borden just snapped. She was fed up with her father controlling every aspect of her life, so while he was out, she went upstairs to her stepmother's room and killed her with an axe, striking her multiple times. Her father came home later, having no idea of his wife's fate, and laid down on the couch to rest. While he was resting, Lizzie Borden killed him with the axe as well. 

However, Lizzie Borden was never convicted for these murders. 

During the trial, there was never enough information to prove that Lizzie was the murderess, and fingers were also pointed at Lizzie's uncle and even disgruntled business partners as the potential murderers. 

So someone got away with murder.

"Hatchet Girls" is a novel inspired by the mystery surrounding the Borden family and intertwines those events with the supernatural as history repeats itself in a present day setting.  

One hundred years after the Borden murders, tragedy has struck again. 

In the town of River Falls, a wealthy businessman and his wife have been murdered in their upscale home that is located just miles from the historic Lizzie Borden home. And when Tessa's older brother Vik is the prime suspect in the double homicide, Tessa knows she is going to have to do everything in her power to prove his innocence and expose the real murderer.

Tessa's hunt for the truth leads her into the dark history of River Falls, and the supposedly cursed forest that her brother was hiking in on the night of the murders. There is something different about that forest, something sinister.  

Did something happen to her brother that night in those woods? Or is some sinister force reaching out from the beyond to ensure that history repeats itself?

Gothic vibes, VERY creepy descriptive scenes, and a engaging method of storytelling that flashes back and forth between the night of the murder and the aftermath makes this a quick and compelling read. 

Perfect for fans who love horror, murder mysteries and the supernatural. 

"Belladonna" by Adalyn Grace

 Overall, I loved this book! It gave me Wuthering Heights vibes with an Agatha Christie mystery thrown in. 

Five Stars!

All her life, Death has followed Signa Farrow.

He was there when her parents and all the guests and staff members of Foxglove were mysteriously poisoned and died at a party when Signa was just a baby. 

He was there throughout her childhood as a string of guardians, who were more interested in Signa's money than her welfare, perished within a fews years of accepting Signa into their homes. 

Now, he has followed Signa to Hawthorne Manor. 

Despite their own recent tragedies, the Hawthorne's, a distant relation to Signa's parents, have graciously invited Signa to live with them for the next 6 months until she turns 19 and is able to claim the inheritance that her family left to her upon their deaths. 

Signa discovers that her hope that Death will not follow her to her new home is in vain when she arrives at Hawthorne Manor only to discover that her cousin, Blythe, has contracted a mysterious life-threatening illness. It is the same illness that took Blythe's mother, Lilliana,  just months before. 

Signa can feel death's presence in the cold and unsettling Manor.

But that is not the only presence she senses.

Lilliana's spirit is not at rest, and her ghost haunts to grounds, crying and wailing in the night. The Hawthorne family is plagued by her restless spirit and Blythe's impending death. 

Signa is determined to stop Death from taking anyone else from her and Signa feels like, for once, she might be able to help because she has secrets of her own. 

Signa can see ghosts and she is tied to Death in a way that no other mortal have ever been. 

Signa suspects that Lillian's death wasn't due to an illness at all, and someone is targeting the remaining members of the family. Her best chance to save her new family is to ally herself with Death in order to catch the murderer before they strike again. 

As Signa and Death begin to work side by side to catch the murderer, the connection between them grows, and Signa realizes that there is more to Death than she ever could have imagined. 

This amazing gothic murder mystery has just the right amount of intrigue, suspense, plot twists, and romance to make a great book! I was hooked within the first few pages.  Signa was an intriguing character who really found herself as the story progressed. She was so unsure of who she wanted to be when the story began, but through the trials she experienced, she was able to take hold of her destiny and become who she was meant to be. 

Death was swoon worthy! He was so mysterious in the beginning, and as revelations were made throughout the story, you better understood his role in Signa's life and in her future. 

I am looking forward to starting book two!