Select language, opens an overlay

Comment

Dec 02, 2015gusmcrae rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
I ended up with "Help for the Haunted" in my reading list because I was looking for scary books around Halloween. Truth be told, if this book was rated solely for its scare-factor, I think it would get 0 stars. The book is not scary, though it did a good job of keeping me guessing as to whether it really was trying to be scary or not. What the book is, though, is a fantastic read. HFTH is a coming-of-age/mystery that follows Sylvie Mason as she sets out to discover just what happened to her parents on a cold and snowy February night when they went to a church to pick up their rebel daughter, only to be shot down by a mystery assailant. Sylvie, the only witness to this event, thought she knew who did it, but as the novel unwinds, she finds herself questioning what she saw, and ultimately questioning what she knew of her family as a whole. Not everything was as it seemed, apparently. Author John Searles does a masterful job of weaving the past with the present as Sylvie slowly uncovers deeply hidden truths about her family. The novel had a bit of a slow-burn feeling to it; the deeper I got into the story, the harder I found to put it down. There were characters who I came to despise, and others who intrigued me, and who I wished we could spend more time with. Ultimately, it was a fascinating and heartbreaking journey of a read. I look forward to future stories from Searles.