Fiction
Recommended for: Young Adults
Ross Wakeman succeeded the first time he killed himself, but
not the second or the third.
He fell asleep at the wheel and drove his car off a
bridge into a lake– that was the second time– and was found
on the shore by rescuers. When his half–sunken Honda was
recovered, the doors were all locked, and the tempered glass
windows were shattered like spider webs, but still intact.
No one could figure out how he'd gotten out of the car in
the first place, much less survived a crash without even a
scratch.
The third time, Ross was mugged in New York City. The
thief took his wallet and beat him up, and then shot him in
the back and left him for dead. The bullet — fired close
enough to have shattered his scapula and punctured a lung —
didn't. Instead it miraculously stopped at the bone, a small
nugget of lead that Ross now used as a keychain.
The first time was years ago, when Ross had found
himself in the middle of an electrical storm. The lightning,
a beautiful blue charge, had staggered out of the sky and
gone straight for his heart. The doctors told him that he
had been legally dead for seven minutes. They reasoned that
the current could not have struck Ross directly, because
50,000 amperes of current in his chest cavity would have
boiled the moisture in his cells and quite literally made
him explode. Instead, the lightning had hit nearby and
created an induced current in his own body, one still strong
enough to disturb his cardiac rhythm. The doctors said he
was one hell of a lucky man.
They were wrong.
I bought this book on an impulse at the second-hand bookstore twelve months ago and it has been sitting on my (incredibly cluttered) bookshelf ever since. My reluctance to read it, has in part, got to do with the fact that my friend told me it was one of the (i quote) 'most boring books' she has ever read.
But when I chanced upon it during one of my regular time-to-declutter-the-clutter sessions, I grabbed some ice water and GOT READING. i am not a huge fan of ghost stories or thrillers, so i must admit i was quite skeptical to begin with. But i must say, it was hard to put down.
The story follows budding ghost hunter, Ross Wakeman, who has never seen a ghost before in his life. His obsession with the supernatural stemmed from losing his fiance in a car crash. When he realises that his paranormal profession is bring him no closer to his dead fiancee, he moves in with his sister, Shelby, who lives in Comtosook.
It just so happens that the town is experiencing supernatural happenings of their own upon Ross' arrival. Petals rain from the sky, the weather changes drastically. Rumour has it that all this is due to the sale of an Abernaki burial ground to a developer who wants to build a row of strip malls.
Ross is hired to find out if there really are paranormal happenings upon that land, and in the process, meets the lovely but mysterious Lia Pike.
The novel is a ghost story. Throw in a bit of romance and mystery and murder. This book doesn't have the signature courtroom drama that Picoult has become famous for, but it still contains the captivating plot and twists that we all know and love.
The story does have it's flaws, such as the introduction of too many characters in the first few pages of the novel. It can be quite confusing at first, but towards the end of the book you will see how all the individual stories connect.
Overall, a enchanting and magical book. It's full of suspense, but requires a bit of patience. If you have not read Jodi Picoult before, i strongly recommend that you start now, and this book would be perfect to begin with.
Similar novels:
No comments:
Post a Comment