Customer Reviews

Isabella Moon: A Novel

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In Carystown, Kentucky, the only person more mysterious than the ghost of Isabella Moon is the woman she has been appearing to. Kate Russell arrived in Carystown just a few years ago and made a quiet life for herself in the quaint little town. But, after Isabella, who disappeared two years ago, leads Kate to the spot where her body was hastily buried, Kate risks telling Sheriff Delaney, knowing her own past is at risk of exposure. And Delaney is curious about the attractive and illusive Kate... Soon, though, he has his hands full with a murder of a town matriarch, the death of a high school student and the discovery of Isabella Moon's body. He wonders if these events are all connected and why Kate seems to be at the center of it all. Who is she, really, and what is happening in this small town?

Laura Benedict's debut novel, ISABELLA MOON, is part ghost story, part murder mystery and part examination of the dark side of small town America. While the plot is interesting and suspenseful, it is the characters who really make it compelling. Sheriff Delaney is the classic crotchety career cop, but he is also an outsider to Carystown. Despite having married a woman from one of the town's aristocratic families, he is not originally from Carystown and can see it and its inhabitants with an objective eye. Kate's friend, Francie, is a tough and independent woman, but she is carrying on a secret affair with the town's rich golden boy, Paxton. Paxton himself has a nasty drug habit and is still living at home with his ailing yet strong-willed mother.

When Francie's mother, the well-respected Lillian Cayley, is murdered right after Kate takes her searching for the body of Isabella Moon, Francie's relationships with both Kate and Paxton begin to deteriorate. As Sheriff Delaney tries to make sense of the chaos threatening his usually peaceful jurisdiction, he continues to wonder if it is all somehow tied to Kate.

By far the most engaging characters are Kate Russell and Isabella Moon herself. Isabella was just nine years old when she went missing after school one day. Her disappearance caused a media storm, but there were never any solid leads for the police to work with, and the frenzy died down. Her mother and the others who lived on the communal farm on the outskirts of town also went on with their lives. Two years later Isabella is back, appearing to her mother and, for some reason, to Kate as well. Perhaps it is because of Kate's own violent and frightening past that Isabella's ghost confides in her.

As Sheriff Delaney soon learns, Kate is not exactly who she says she is. Through the course of the novel, her past is revealed to readers: a life of abuse and humiliation at the hands of her husband Miles and a series of shocking acts that eventually lead her, shielded with a new identity, to Carystown. Kate learns, though, that the past is never really that far behind. Once Isabella shows up, Kate and others living lies in Carystown will have to face dangerous truths.

ISABELLA MOON is a sexy and violent thriller with a surprising conclusion. Benedict's style is straightforward, and while her pace is slow at times, the combination of traditional thriller and ghost story makes this book a unique read. Benedict throws many balls into the air and does a good job catching most of them. Future efforts surely will be more streamlined, making her a novelist worth watching.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

"People who lie avoid eye contact. And she wasn't lying. At least, not about this." Kate Russell knew very well that she was telling the truth, but would anyone believe her? The disappearance of nine-year-old Isabella Moon some two years ago continued to haunt Sheriff Bill Delaney. Personally, he believed she had run away. Nonetheless, the fact that she had never been found, dead or alive, only compounded the mystery. Carystown, Kentucky was a quiet small town, not the sort of place one would look for a mystery. That is, until Isabella disappeared.

Kate is a recent arrival in this Southern community and a psychic, a gift she wished she did not have. She has come to tell the sheriff that she can take him to Isabella's grave because the dead girl has spoken to her. What would your reaction be to such a claim? And then, what might follow if Kate's story is true?

Laura Benedict's debut novel is a blend of romance, the paranormal, and crime. Unfortunately, for Kate and the sheriff Isabella is only the first to call on Kate for help and the discovery of the girl's body leads to even darker secrets long kept hidden in the hearts and psyches of Carystown's citizenry. As is often true things aren't as they seem nor are people.

Isabella Moon is a story for those who like their mysteries laced with romance and the supernatural. While for this reader the tale seemed to be rather loosely conceived so that it meandered to a conclusion rather than building to it, Isabella Moon is still a first novel worth noting.

- Gail Cooke

It has been two years since nine years old Isabella Moon disappeared and the failure to resolve the case eats at Sheriff Bill Delaney. Rationalizing that these things do not happen in quaint Carystown, Kentucky fails to lift the despondent law enforcement official.

No one is more surprised than newcomer Kate Russell when she sees the ghost of Isabella; she follows the spirit to the spot where the little girl was buried. It takes tremendous will power for Kate to inform Bill what she saw as she has dark secrets that could lead to her arrest. Initially Bill assumes Kate is a flake, but he cannot get her statement out of his mind; so reluctantly he digs at the spot she mentioned and uncovers the corpse. Clues lead to Paxton Birkenshow, a blue blood with plenty of money. He is seeing Kate's best friend Francie, a black woman who does not want their relationship made public as her mother believes he is weak. Paxton and Kate mutually despise each other, but she has other woes besides being a suspect in the Isabella murder; her dangerous secret has come to town to reclaim her. These secrets keep Bill busy while changing his life forever.

This is a refreshing original mystery that occurs in a twenty-first century Peyton Place like town. There are many key interesting characters with some providing a third person point of view that moves the exciting story line forward with a reasonable degree of believability and understanding. ISABELLA MOON is a multifaceted police procedural intertwined with subplots that come together to forge a well written recommended whodunit.

Harriet Klausner

Isabella Moon

In a remarkably rich first novel, short story author Laura Benedict puts a complex spin on the secrets of a small Kentucky town still spooked by the unsolved disappearance of a child two years earlier. When the ghost of nine-year-old Isabella Moon leads newcomer Kate Russell to her hidden grave, instead of bringing closure to the town, the discovery unleashes suspicion on Kate, who has secrets of her own and attracts danger to those who befriend her.

This supernatural thriller, written with a literary flair, feels like a lesson in real life because justice does not always reign. The guilty are not always punished. The innocent are not always saved. Readers hankering for happy endings are better off sticking to fairy tales because this dark debut will haunt your mind each time you turn down a lonely country road.

Two years ago, Kate Russell moved to rural Carystown, Kentucky, aiming to build a new life for herself, and reticent about her past. Recently her sleep has been interrupted by dreams in which a little girl, Isabella Moon, beckons her into the night. Isabella disappeared some time ago, and her fate has never been discovered, which sticks in the craw of Sheriff Delaney. When Kate's dreams indicate where to find Isabella's body, she feels it's her duty to inform him. He knows better than to take fanciful reports seriously, but his suspicions are raised about Kate herself. If Kate has her own secrets, so do half the people in town, and before Isabella's mystery is solved, the Sheriff will be appalled by what's been going on under his very nose.

In spite of its spooky opening, Isabella Moon is slow to take off. Told in the third person from multiple perspectives, it takes a while to come to know the major players. I nearly gave up on the book. But the lives of Carystown folk have been intertwined for generations, and their back stories are important. Things finally take wing about a third of the way through, twisting into a dark, rich, Peyton Place sort of puzzle, with gothic undertones and a sprinkling of the supernatural. This is a character driven novel, all of them vivid and memorable. As for the ending, it's pretty creepy; a bit too ambiguous for my taste, but it certainly is in keeping with the rest of the picture. For a debut novel, Isabella Moon is first rate.

Kate Russell is a recent transplant to the small southern town of Carystown, Kentucky. Lately Kate has come to believe that she is being haunted by the ghost of Isabella Moon, a young girl who disappeared two years earlier. Convinced she knows where Isabelle's body is Kate goes to the sheriff with her story. When Sheriff Delaney reluctantly follows up on the lead, he does find Isabella's body; now Kate is one of the prime suspects in the case and she has many secrets of her own to conceal- including why she came to this town in the first place. When another murder takes place some dark secrets of the town's residents come bubbling to the top.

This book was a real page turner, and I really liked it, even if some of the plotting was familiar or obvious. The WTF? ending had me completely flabbergasted, and not in a good way. I just hated the conclusion and it took the overall rating of the book down a notch.

First Sentence: Kate was surprised when the stern-looking young woman at the duty desk told her to take a seat instead of just asking her name and sending her on her way when she announced, in a voice she could barely keep from shaking, that she knew where they could find the body of Isabella Moon.

Kate Russell has been seeing a small child. The problem is that it is the ghost of a child who disappeared two year previous. Although Kate can't convince the sheriff, Lillian, the mother of Kate's friend, Francie, believes the spirit wants Kate to find her body. Once the body is found, it seems all the towns secrets come to life.

I like woo-woo books and the handling of that, frankly, was the best part of this book. But even though the appearances of the spirit were well done, the actions were completely predictable. The rest? Not so much.

There were a lot of characters that the story jumped between. About half of them were not only unlikable but even some of the more appealing characters spent much of their time being just too stupid to live. I ran out of sympathy for them very quickly. The villains of the piece, of which there were many, were so obvious it negated much of the suspense.

There were large sections of back flash providing us Kate's history, which while relevant, was all printed in italics, making it difficult to read.

What was really off is that there was no good reason for all the events that happen to have happened at the same time.

There was quite a bit of sex, which isn't a bad thing in itself, but with next to no romance it became unappealing. I know it was used as a way to demonstrate power and control but, for me, it just became boring.

The ending felt rather bizarre and as though the author had reached her word quota. You read and read and waited and waited and suddenly...it's done.

I know all this sounds as though I hated the book. Oddly, I didn't. It certainly kept me reading and I read it in one sitting. But after starting off really so well, it felt as though it spun off out of control into...nothing. This was such a disappointment.

Having just finished Isabella Moon, I can see why other readers had complaints. This is absolutely not a thriller where everything is wrapped up in the end with a tidy little bow. But I thought this was a wonderful novel, populated by fully fleshed-out characters whose personal weaknesses frequently lead to tragedy. The writing was lovely and poetic, with extraordinarily vivid imagery. The portrait of a idyllic, sleepy Southern town jarred by unexpected violence was very well done. This book stuck with me after I finished it, which is rare for a thriller. Highly recommended.

ISABELLA MOON by Laura Benedict is a hearty character driven plot, filled with surprises. The reader is drawn into the fishbowl lives of the townspeople of Carystown, Kentucky--a community embroiled in secrets, unexpected sexual liaisons, and deep betrayal. But the biggest secret of all is the disappearance of 9-year old Isabella Moon two years prior. Like a domino about to be tipped, finding the missing girl jumpstarts this compelling plot. And the author wields an intriguing voice that beckons with the subtlety of a whispered secret, yet she holds the reader with unexpected plot twists and images that linger long after the last page is turned. Benedict paints an atmospheric and supernatural world with a noir feel to the crime fiction elements of this story. A wonderful read that I recommend highly.

The small town of Carystown, Kentucky, has barely recovered from the shock of the disappearance of nine-year-old Isabella Moon two years ago, when newcomer Kate Russell informs Sheriff Bill Delaney that she knows where the child is buried. Not given to crediting information with no basis in fact, Delaney wonders at this enigmatic young woman's motivation, filing Kate away as a potential person of interest. For her part, Kate is spooked by the ghostly Isabella, but unwilling to turn her back on the child, whether it makes sense or not. Ultimately, it does not, but we are asked to suspend belief in this matter in order to sustain the unfolding plot.

Thankfully, the rest of the novel is grounded in the more mundane aspects of a small town fallen prey to big city corruption, a spreading drug culture and all that entails, a few lurid back-alley trysts and the gradual unraveling of the town's most notorious family. A veneer of civility remains with all the necessary characteristics of southern hospitality, but to Delaney's increasing chagrin, his beloved Carystown is little more than a cherished idea that has run its course, human nature acting as its own worst advocate in matters of self interest. However, after the violent death of a respected member of the community and the collapse of a young athlete, Delaney turns his finely-honed skills to the problems at hand. Clinging to the wife he almost lost to cancer for emotional support, Delaney, who becomes the hero of the piece, is faced with the bitter realities of criminal enterprise.

While Russell's role is pivotal, she remains the weakest character, always second-guessing her actions to the extreme detriment of those around her. Keeping a lurid history to herself, Kate seeks to reinvent her identity, but a lack of honesty hampers relationships with her best friend, Francie, and her love interest, Caleb. Isabella Moon is a necessary construct to link an often clumsy storyline, Carystown peopled with megalomaniacs, murderers, hippies and the working folk who gather in local cafes to trade the latest rumors. When the violence comes, it is swift and brutally efficient, no subtleties left to the imagination.

Delaney's town is, after all, just like everywhere else, except maybe a little weirder for the hauntings and generational lore that come with the territory. There are a few interesting anti-heroes: the handsome scion of the town's most influential family who defies his mother's will in pursuit of happiness; an obsessive husband (right out of "Sleeping with the Enemy"), who will stop at nothing to recover his beloved; a nurse hopelessly attracted to an ill-starred affair; and an over-indulgent businesswoman who dreads loneliness. Watching them all is Isabella Moon, in her yellow slicker and red boots, wanting nothing more than a place to rest. I'm exhausted. Luan Gaines/2007.