Thomas Nelson (May 6, 2008)
Liparulo starts this series and book off with the eerie tone you’ll find so well executed in his work. Rarely does a page go by without some strange and creepy mysterious event being described with Liparulo’s talent for sparse description in vocabulary conveying a wealth of images and emotions. You’ll soon find that his plots are never straightforward or predictable and with every turn of the page more questions are introduced than resolved. In the end you are left with a craving for the next book or chapter in order to dispel the sense of confusion the expanding uncertainties produce. Rather than feeling lost or unfulfilled by the twists and sprinkle of answers that continue leading readers and characters through the unsettling events of his stories, Liparulo has found the fine line between too little and too much information that keeps readers involved yet desperate for more. This introduction to his tween/teen spiritual chiller series opens with a flashback alluding to cryptic history involving an abandoned dwelling isolated from civilization. Coming on the heels of this enigmatic revelation we quickly land decades after that event as three children and their parents are moving into a new house. It seems no one knows what happened to the previous owners of this dilapidated home and apparently don’t care either. For some reason the creepy atmosphere of their new home is unsettling yet they find themselves enticed to discover why the house is not only vacant but intentionally avoided by nearly everyone in the community. Since this is the first book of the series be sure to start here and read them all in order. Even the author has been very clear with warnings at the beginning of each book to read them from the very start and not skip around. As a reader I think you would find yourself quickly lost as so much of the plot of the series is intertwined with previous books as well as building the continuation of the story upon what has come before. (ISBN#9781595544940, 304pp, $14.99)
Codicil:
Visit Robert’s Website. Read an excerpt. Click the cover to purchase a copy and for more info about the book. Thanks to Thomas Nelson for a review copy.
