Author: JS Donovan
Publisher: Kindle publishing
Pages: 376
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
The book consists of three short novels, beginning with a prequel, and going on to the solving of a cold case more than 40 years old.
In 1983, Reginald
and Lilith live with their children, 9-year-old Amanda and 7-year-old Benny, in
their sprawling home, Hadley House, when two masked men enter and shoot them
all down mercilessly.
In 2009, Rachel and
her husband, Brett, buy the house and move in. She is an artist, specializing
in creepy art. He is a nature photographer.
Strange things
happen from the very beginning. Doors swing wide open. Things are found in places other than where they had been kept. An annoying couple, Shaw and
his wife, Eva, insist they want to buy the house.
The odd thing is
that only Rachel senses the fact that something is odd about their new
house. Brett remains blissfully unaware. It doesn’t help that Rachel’s mother
has been institutionalized. Rachel’s efforts to convey what she is sensing lead
others to question her sanity. Rachel herself fears for her own fate.
While in the
basement, she is assaulted by horrific episodes of objects flying at her,
spiders attacking her, until finally the dead kids reveal themselves to her and ask
for help in nailing their killers. Anxious to regain her peace of mind, Rachel
goes about investigating the deaths, against the wishes of Brett. Her poking
around ruffles feathers, and before long, she and Brett are attacked in their
own home.
At the close of
this book, Rachel discovers her calling, solving cold murder cases, thanks to
her Gift of being able to see dead people, a gift that her mother had. She is
invited by Detective Jenson Peak to join the police department and help them
solve cases.
In the second
book, Haunting of Rachel Harroway, Book 1, which opens years after the
prequel, Rachel has accepted Peak’s offer, and now partners with him in solving
cold cases. They are called at the scene of a crime where the bones of a
17-year-old girl, dead for 40 years, have been found. Soon Rachel sees the
spirits of seven teenagers, all of who were killed in the same manner by a
serial killer.
When the body of
another teenager is found, killed in the same manner, Rachel and Jenson realise
that the killer is very much alive. Now their own lives are in danger, as
the serial killer, now a respectable man, tries his best to add Rachel and Peak
to his body count.
The third book,
Haunting of Rachel Harroway, Book 2, continues the story begun in Book 1.
It begins with the discovery of the body of the serial killer, who has been
killed by an unknown murderer. Rachel and Peak race to find out who killed the
serial killer and if this murderer will strike again. To make matters worse, the
serial killer, though dead, plagues Rachel with visions of torture that feel
all too real, and threatens her with everlasting torture unless she manages to
bring his killer to book.
The descriptions
are good and set the mood. The sense of dread that the author evokes in us at
Rachel’s plight feels real, even though the tropes used to evoke fear, the
silhouette in the mirror, the tug on the shirt when there’s no one around etc,
are the usual ones over-used in most paranormal fiction.
Rachel’s character
is well drawn. The book gives us the right amount of back story for her,
helping us to relate better.
There are several
errors like "Reginald raised his aims." Brett is misspelled as Bret in one
place.
In one place, the
author says, “the sharp of an L.” It should clearly have been ‘shape.’ In
another instance, the author says, "After some undisclosed amount of time…" Maybe it was part of an earlier draft that the author failed to weed out.
In the first part,
I had an issue with the omniscient narrator’s tone of disrespect. The librarian
at the Hudson Library is referred to as “a crone,” while in another case,
Rachel’s mother is described as “went off her rocker.”
A good editor
could have corrected the grammar and eliminated the shady phrasing. In certain places, the sentence construction
was quite awkward. Thankfully, the errors are far fewer in number in Books 1
and 2. Either the author got his act together or he found himself a better
editor.
In spite of the
errors, I found myself warming up to both Rachel and Peak, enjoying the tension
as Rachel sees hundreds of dead people all around. All these dead people have
died violent deaths, and are now looking to Rachel to give them justice and
peace.
I look forward to
reading more of Rachel’s cases.
