Ghost House

Ghost House
by Alexandra Adornetto
Grand Haven, MI: Brilliance Audio
2014
Performed by Emily Foster
8 audio discs/9 hours


Everyone who knows me, knows that I enjoy haunted house stories. So it was no wonder that I picked up Ghost House by Alexandra Adornetto, author of the Halo Trilogy, to listen to in my car.

Briefly, Chloe Kennedy has been seeing ghosts from a young age. Her mother had helped her with this rather scary problem by telling her to tell the ghosts to go away and, miraculously, they did, for a long time. But now Chloe's mother has died unexpectedly and Chloe is devastated. 

Now, I am not sure that it was a good idea to take a young girl who sees ghosts to an old English manor house, but Chloe's British grandmother owns one and that's where Chloe ends up to have a break and recover from her mother's death. I guess she is distracted from her own personal tragedy, at least. Grange Hall, Chloe's granny's home, is full of rather frightening apparations--hanging men on trees, a ghoul in her closet, and a handsome young man who can actually converse with Chloe, something that hasn't happened before.

Kildwick Hall, Grange Road, Kildwick in North Yorkshire
Grange Hall in this book might look something like this.

Alexander Reade, Chloe discovers, has been dead for 157 years. But because he is more real than any other ghost she has met or seen, she forgets that he is a ghost. Being really good-looking and engaging doesn't hurt anything either.

Through Alexander, Chloe learns the secret behind the hauntings of Grange Hall. The matter becomes quite urgent as ancient jealousies remain in play and become focused onto Chloe, threatening the house, Chloe's grandmother, and Chloe herself.

This story has good moments: I really enjoyed most of the interactions between Chloe and Alexander, although some of them seemed rather contrived. Would Chloe really forget that Alex was a ghost? I rather think not.

What I don't get about this story was that it took so very long (nearly to the end of the book) to actually ask Alexander what happened to him, how he really died, and who else is haunting the Grange. If I were a high-school aged girl who could see ghosts, I would be asking the first one who could talk back to me about how he died. Isn't that the way to help them pass on? I mean, wouldn't she be curious about that? I certainly would be. Instead we get a lot of flirting and angry ghosts inexplicably throwing things around. 

If I were to make this story stronger, I would probably have allowed Chloe to be more of a detective, asking more questions of the ghosts she can talk to, and doing more research to find out the background of Grange Hall and the Reade family who lived there. The writing, too, was rather all over and uneven. The back and forth with the past and present didn't always flow well, and I wanted to yell at Chloe a lot of the time that Alexander wasn't nearly as interesting as the young live man in front of her who is also trying to get her attention.

So, anyway, this book is okay but not great. I think if you are keen on ghost stories and not particularly picky, you will want to try this one, but don't expect the best ghost story you ever read.