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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Teens Read Too, August 27, 2008
Blackthorne has always been haunted. A tiny town in Massachusetts, it has been abandoned since the Salem witch trials, when a group of unfortunates fled there only to be hanged as witches.
Now, in the heart of the Victorian era, one train is bound for Blackthorne, where a winter carnival awaits in an attempt to breathe life into the old town. The cars are full of the promise of fireworks, sleigh rides, and skating, but Tess and Tobias Goodraven, two seasoned ghost hunters, expect something much darker.
Though they came in search of ghosts, even the Goodravens didn't expect a witch like Old Mother Malgore - a ghost full of malevolence, who stalks the forests, snuffing out any spark of life. When the train derails and casualties soar, the Goodravens must move between past and present tragedies to have any chance of killing the witch, quieting the souls of the living, and setting to rest the ghosts.
SPIRIT uses the historical Salem witch trials as a jumping point, and leaps off into an eerie ghost story. The prose is lyrical and haunting, and the narration, led by Tess and Tobias, oscillates between richly romantic, unexpectedly terrifying, and acerbically humorous, all with a touch of darkness. As the story progresses, readers' expectations will be completely derailed as new revelations move the plot in altogether uncharted directions.
With an ending so unexpectedly chilling that I was actually frightened, SPIRIT is a masterfully done book that will haunt the reader long after its cover has been closed.
Reviewed by: Rebecca Wells
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Melodrama in the Macabre, February 19, 2009
It's Salem, Massachusetts in the year 1892. The Goodravens, Tess and Tobias, are a couple of independently wealthy, narcissistic young mediums who idle their hours away, spending money, hunting ghosts and playing the cello. With a name like Goodraven you can guess that these two are the good guys. Well, skulking in the woods between Salem and the nearby deserted and reputedly haunted town of Blackthorne--there had been an epidemic there once upon a time--lurks the "ghost" of a REAL witch. She hadn't been one of the merely poor, infirm or mentally unstable old women wrongly hanged as witches in the infamous Salem Trials. No, the Widow Malgore is the real thing: The First Accusd. "Malgore", another unsubtle moniker: "mal" (bad) and "gore" (which pretty much sums up this tale). Straight from Central Casting with glowing eyeballs and an animal's skull head, and riding the requisite demon steed she has bent to her will, Malgore draws ever greater dark powers from the very land itself. The woods between Salem and Blackthorne are haunted by some infinitely ancient, malevolent force, it is rumored in local Indian lore.
"There ARE witches in these woods," Josiah Jurey interrupted..."
There is a surprise ending but I won't give it away, although apparently the author wanted to make darn sure we didn't miss it. Instead of letting the surprise tap us on the shoulder, O. Henry style, author Hightman goes on to beat us over the head with a club of the obvious for another page and a half.
If chainsaws had been invented in 1892, then professional screenwriter J. P. Hightman would have undoubtedly written this book with one. So if gratuitous violence, a meandering and illogical plot line, and characters you neither identify with nor care that much about are your cup of tea (or chalice of blood), then this is just the book for you. The glossy black-and-red cover jacket with black guttering candles and the title SPIRIT writ dramatically in flame is calculated to make this book jump right off the shelf and into your trembling but eager hands with a loud cha-CHING!
In spite of all this (or rather, because of it), this book is sure to be a page-turner for the teen Goth set.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Chilling, September 3, 2008
"Those who seek the truth in the blood of the Salem dead will find nothing but torment in their head..."
J.P. Hightman's book Spirit is a Gothic novel aimed at the young adult crowd. When its protagonists-- a young independently wealthy married couple-- go looking for the fate of the mysterious "First Accused" of the Salem witch trials, they find themselves trapped in a web of malevolent magic and unable to stop the train of deaths around them. As the body count rises and the evil intensifies, Tess and Tobias try frantically to discern what the spirits want from them. Will their isolation from one another prove their undoing, or will the phantoms of a long dead Puritan couple help them to survive?
Spirit's prose is sometimes breathtaking but often overwrought. The plot has so many tangles, twists and characters that it can be confusing, and puzzling scenes are left unexplained. The hypersensitivity of the main characters is a bit heavy-handed and at times annoying, but the haunting atmosphere of the novel easily overcomes its flaws.
Spirit is a ghost story perfect for chilly October nights and will appeal strongly to fans of Twilight.
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