School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins

Series: Standalone spin-off to Hex Hall

Genera(s): Paranormal Romance/Mystery

Subjects: supernatural, ghosts, hauntings, spirits, hunters, magic, witches

Setting: mainly in Ideal, Mississippi

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, past tense: Izzy Brannik

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 297 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover originally, now in Paperback

List Price: $9.99

Publisher: Hyperion

Summary/ product description: “Fifteen-year-old Izzy Brannick was trained to fight monsters. For centuries, her family has hunted magical creatures. But when Izzy’s older sister vanishes without a trace while on a job, Izzy's mom decides they need to take a break.

Izzy and her mom move to a new town, but they soon discover it’s not as normal as it appears. A series of hauntings has been plaguing the local high school, and Izzy is determined to prove her worth and investigate. But assuming the guise of an average teenager is easier said than done. For a tough girl who's always been on her own, it’s strange to suddenly make friends and maybe even have a crush.

Can Izzy trust her new friends to help find the secret behind the hauntings before more people get hurt?

Rachel Hawkins' delightful spin-off brings the same wit and charm as the New York Times best-selling Hex Hall series. Get ready for more magic, mystery and romance!”

My Review:  This is a very fun spin-off. I am disappointed that there is no sequel to it since the ending wasn’t completely satisfying, with Izzy’s missing sister. There’s no cliffhanger, so it works as a standalone. Izzy Brannik was a character introduced in Spellbound, the final Hex Hall novel. She was a tween in that book and now she’s almost 16. So this takes place a few years after the events of Spellbound.

Finley, her sister went missing and her mother send Izzy out on her first job alone. She goes after a vampire, but her mom has to save her. They find out about a violent haunting in Ideal, Mississippi and move there. There’s a deadly ghost at the high school and Izzy gets her first chance of going to a real school. She makes friends with the ghost-hunting club member Romy, Dex and Anderson.

She learns about what happened to the biology teacher that was killed. Another student in threatened similarly. Also Izzy feel magic when she touches Dex. It’s very usually since she can usually sense Prodigium at a distance, not only by touch. So, what is Dex? He’s quirky, fashionably dressed, and likes to talk fancy, but he’s not a vampire or warlock and he doesn’t smell like a werewolf. Izzy’s falling for him. He reminds me a lot of Archer (who had blue eyes too) with his humor.

I really enjoyed this and the series that it came from. Rachel Hawkins’s humor is pretty awesome. Sure, Izzy is more tough-girl than Sophie, who was a total smart-alec. I notice that she uses “Fair enough” too much and family disfunctionality stuff. Some humor is dialogue get repetitive, but I still love it. If you never read the Hex Hall series and love magic and paranormal romance, then you should check it out.

Cover Art Review: Funky and fun like the covers for the previous books.

The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall by Katie Alender

Series: Standalone

Genera(s): Paranormal/Horror

Subjects: supernatural, ghosts, spirits, death, afterlife, hauntings, asylums

Setting: An ex-Asylum in Pennsylvania

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, past tense: Delia

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 329 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover 

List Price: $18.99

Publisher: Scholastic: Point

Summary/ product description: “In this asylum, your mind plays tricks on you all the time…

Delia’s new house isn’t just a house. Long ago, it was the Piven Institute for the Care and Correction of Troubled Females—an insane asylum nicknamed “Hysteria Hall.” However, many of the inmates were not insane, just defiant and strong willed. Kind of like Delia herself.

But the house still wants to keep “troubled” girls locked away. So, in the most horrifying way, Delia gets trapped.

And that’s when she learns that the house is also haunted.

Ghost girls wander the halls in their old-fashioned nightgowns. A handsome ghost boy named Theo roams the grounds. Delia finds that all the spirits are unsettled and full of dark secrets. The house, as well, harbors shocking truths within its walls—truths that only Delia can uncover, and that may set her free.

But she’ll need to act quickly, before the house’s power overtakes everything she loves.

From master of suspense Katie Alender comes a riveting tale of twisted memories and betrayals, and the meaning of madness.”

My Review: I was surprised by this book. I’ve been having a hard time making time to read over the past few weeks and this is the first book that I’ve finished this fast in months. I’ve only read one other book by this author, Bad Girls Don’t Die. This is similar and different. That book was about possession, and this one is about the afterlife.

Delia and her family go to the home of her great-aunt Cordelia, which turns out to be an ex-asylum for trouble girls. This place is haunted. And very soon in the story something causes Delia to jump out a window and kill herself. Delia become a ghost, trapped on the property, forced to live out her afterlife in the last place she’d want to be.

I’ve read a few books in which the main character is a ghost. This one a kind of interesting take. There’s weird time jumps and freezes. Time becomes unpredictable for Delia and she ends up staring out a window for about two year, frozen. Four years after her death is when things get really interesting and she sees her sister as a teen. Delia’s sister Janie has been deeply affected by Delia’s death and want to contact Delia’s spirit.

Delia’s met the other ghost girls of Hysteria Hall. Florence, Eliza and Maria, and a few others. Eliza’s British and Florence is from the south. Maria’s very strange and wears a sheet like a ghost costume. There’s Theo, the dead boy on the ground who’s never entered the house and also become a love interest to Delia.

This book is very fun, creepy, light and fast. It’s a standalone. I definitely recommend it. I recommend this to those who enjoyed: Asylum by Madeleine Roux, Ashes to Ashes by Melissa Walker, Hereafter by Tara Hudson, Anna Dresses in Blood by Kendare Blake, Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson, and Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke.

Cover Art Review: The cover is sparkly opalline paper. It’s creepy, ghostly. It fits the book.

Dust to Dust by Melissa Walker

Series: Ashes Duology (bk. 2)

Genera(s): Paranormal Romance

Subjects: supernatural, death, ghosts, afterlife, hauntings, love

Setting: Charleston, South Carolina

POV/Tense: 1st person POV, present tense, Callie

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 310 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: HarperTeen: Katherine Teagan

Summary/ product description: “Perfect for fans of If I Stay or Imaginary Girls, Dust to Dust is the mysterious, thoughtful, and poignant sequel to Melissa Walker's haunting and heartbreaking novel Ashes to Ashes.

When Callie McPhee miraculously recovers from a tragic accident that should have taken her life, she thought her connection to the ghost world would be severed forever. And that she would never see Thatcher—the ghost she fell in love with in the hereafter—again. But when she receives unexpected signs from Thatcher, she's led down a dark road toward the angry souls who once tried to steal her soul's energy for another chance at life.

Now Callie must prevent the real world and the spirit world from colliding, and that could mean saying good-bye to people she'd never imagined she'd lose.”

My Review:  Dust to Dust is the sequel to Ashes to Ashes and also the finale. It’s very different from the previous book, which was set in the afterlife called the Prism. Here we have the real-world setting of Charleston, South Carolina. We get to see more of Callie’s friends and school-life. We also get paranormal stuff like ghosts and poltergeists just like the previous book, but now Callie’s not one of there. She’s awake and alive, no longer in a coma.

I did enjoy the characters in this book. The story was character driven, but had a solid plot. We get a lot more of Carson, Callie’s best friend. Carson is very relatable and also obsessed with paranormal stuff and watched ghost hunting shows and supernatural TV and movies. She wants Callie to spill her experience and Callie gives in and Carson is super enthusiast about Callie getting her story out there. Callie rather keep it private.

There’s also Nick, Callie’s boyfriend who not really in love with her anymore. Thatcher who’s a spirit guide and the love interest of the previous book. Callie is still in love with him, but she can’t really interact with him outside of dreams. Dylan, a new character that has a crush on Carson, is kind of a bookish hipster who’s family owns a paranormal book store. He’s always quoting famous people.

This story is very fun a reminiscent of other paranormal stories I’ve read in the past. It’s not cliché but it’s like other ghost books I’ve read that include possessions or the afterlife. Like the Ghost Huntress series, or Hereafter by Tara Hudson. It’s got a lighter tone. Nothing too scary or dark. It’s romance and friendship and hard choices. It’s sometime bitter sweet. I also love the southern setting. Beautiful Creatures was the only other series that really gave me a taste of South Carolina. I actually have a cousin who moved there a while back, but I’ve never been father south the Kentucky. I’d recommend this series to those who want to read a really unique ghost story.

Cover Art Review: Looks like a Shadow Falls novel cover. Not very unique, but it sets a mood. I like the warm tones of orange and pink.