Dead Spell [Kindle Edition]

Belinda Frisch (Author)

Book Description

Meet Harmony Wolcott. Damaged and determined, she'll take you to the wrong side of the tracks and you'll love it.

"This is a great book that pulled me in from the beginning pages and would not let go until the end." -Nightly Reading Review

"When the words of a book reach out, grips you by the throat, and pulls you from the first page to the very end in one sitting, then that is a great book. Dead Spell did just that. I was completely captivated from the very beginning and felt as though I couldn't read it quickly enough." -Angela Scott

Harmony's darkest secret has clawed its way back from the grave and only her best friend, Brea believes her.  

Adam, Harmony's boyfriend, fears for her safety. Her mentally ill mother is too busy tending her own demons to care. Brea's family, who has denounced Harmony's for years, buried the truth about their shared tragic past along with their former friendship.

Harmony looks for answers about the monster's identity in the wreckage of her abandoned childhood home but when her search leads her down a dark path, Brea and Adam must pick up the crumbs to get much needed closure.

Some secrets you keep, even from yourself. Dead Spell is about a ghost with a past and a girl who would die to forget it.

 A Young Adult novel intended for older teens and fans of YA fiction. Some mature themes.

 

Editorial Reviews

Review

When everything around you is out to destroy you and your life, your resolve against it cannot last forever. "Dead Spell" is the story of Harmony Wolcott, a woman trying to deal with the forces around her, her schizophrenic mother, and secrets she has been keeping to herself going into adulthood. As time moves on, she is forced to confront the forces around her or be consumed by them, and doom herself to life of drugs and promiscuity. "Dead Spell" is a story of facing the crisis that life has left for you as you enter adulthood.

-Midwest Book Review

From the Author

Dead Spell is a 40,000 word novella intended for older YA (Young Adult) audiences. Some mature themes.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 238 KB
• Print Length: 155 pages
• Publisher: Something Darker Press (March 3, 2011)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004OR1BPS
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #311,030 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Dead Spell by Belinda Frisch June 15, 2011

By Yogamom67

Format:Paperback

Dead Spell by Belinda Frisch

The book should have been, could have been, but simply wasn't. First - there is absolutely no doubt that this woman knows how to write. Second, she did suck me in to the story - quickly! Third, I was left wanting and disappointed by what should have been a great book (books), but wasn't.

This was a book that could have easily been developed in to three books. Talk about 100 questions. I had more like a thousand. And I feel that if the author had had the opportunity to work with a good editor, these questions, for the most part, would have been answered and the entire experience would have been worlds more satisfying.

So, my issues with the book:
First, the book started in the middle, and I don't mean the middle of what should have been the first book, but rather the middle of what easily could have been the second book in a trilogy. Second, the character development was poor - not because of what was there, but because of what wasn't. What we are given about the two girls is good, but it's just pieces of a puzzle, and not enough pieces that one could fill in what was missing. Third, the ending just didn't work. Maybe it could have if the writing and character/scene/plot development had been better over all, but I don't think so. The ending just didn't fit everything else we'd been given.

I am surprised by all of the five star reviews. It's hard to believe that they are honest assessments if this story. Belinda Frisch IS a good, if not excellent author. But what she needs is some honest feedback/appraisals and she needs what every good author needs - a really awesome editor who can mine the gold from the black dirt. Because the gold is there...

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If You Want your Stomach Twisted into a Pretzel... February 22, 2011

By Summer D. Hammond

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

...read Dead Spell. Then see if you can get to sleep. I couldn't. Every little noise jarred me awake, heart racing. I kept getting up to check the doors, the closets, behind the shower curtain. I lay awake, mind churning over a novel with a relentless and terrifying grip.

After three hours of nonstop reading, I felt like I'd stepped off a thrill ride that was part world's most bad-assed rollercoaster and part insane house of horrors. Dead Spell carved itself into my muscle memory and won't be shaken off. It's akin to a furious nightmare that electrifies you every time you think of it for the rest of your life.

The technical skill it took to craft such a complex, layered story leaves me awe struck. Frisch wrote from several different perspectives and the shift always felt right and seamless from a technical perspective, gripping and dizzying from an emotional perspective. And the writer sank me into some truly frightening psychologies.

Being inside Harmony's mind was both awful and riveting. What Frisch accomplished, creating this complex, believable "bad girl", is stunning. All too often "bad girls" are rendered cartoonish, as exaggerated caricatures. Harmony is disturbing and compelling because she's real. She's fierce and vulnerable and full of rage and also brimming with need like a terrified little girl. She is so skillfully rendered that part of the heart pounding suspense of the story is waiting to see what Harmony will do or say next.

And you know what's amazing? The beauty of the writing in a story of horror. "She dug her toes into the mud and the surface roots of weeds that she briefly imagined were the tendons and sinew of some half rotten soul." That's exquisite, and also gut-wrenching, and there's something in that contrast that renders it unforgettable. The novel is infused with gorgeous imagery even as it reads like an unstoppable slam against one atrocity after another - and it's the beauty of these details, contrasted with the horror, that contributes to a richly complicated narrative that won't let go.

Yes, this is a story brimming with masterful contrasts. Harmony and her mentally ill mother, Charity. The stark contrast of those gentle names against a backdrop of misery and grotesque despair. Then Brea and Harmony. Brea's fear only serves to intensify Harmony's recklessness. For instance, when Harmony gets arrested for stealing a car. "Harmony was silent, unshaken, cuffed and defiant, and Brea wondered how she could be so strong when she, the innocent one, was scared shitless." Brea's growth from timidity to ferocity for the sake of her friend rivets you to the page. Her whirlwind absorption into the madness adds a mystery element to the thriller/horror/paranormal/romance.

The scenes with Tom are a ghastly nightmare. Try to guess what he's all about. I dare you. The twists come out of nowhere and it's like being on a rollercoaster in pitch black darkness...you never see them coming and you just rise and drop and your soul screams.

The ending was a revelation I never guessed. The most horrifying, exquisitely rendered drop of all, leaving my stomach a tightly constructed pretzel of fear wedged in my throat.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Creepy Tale January 5, 2012

By Malina Roos

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Great, fast read. Very well written, the story moves along at a great pace and keeps the reader engaged and involved.

Dead Spell is a ghost story about a 17 year old troubled girl with a schizophrenic mother and a dark secret. Harmony is a troubled girl, does drugs, comes from a broken home and has a best friend and a boyfriend who tries to help.

Brea has a mom who does not want the girls to hang out and tries to keep the girls separated.

Throw in a ghost, a graveyard and a mystery and you have all he ingredients of a creepy story.

More About the Author

Belinda Frisch's fiction has appeared in Shroud Magazine, Dabblestone Horror, and Tales of Zombie War. She is an honorable mention winner in the Writer's Digest 76th Annual Writing Competition and her novel, CURE, is the runner-up in the General Fiction category of the 2012 Halloween Book Festival. She is the author of DEAD SPELL, PAYBACK, CURE, and AFTERBIRTH.