“It had a wild side to it, too,” Cooper writes of stately Ratmulen House in one of several intriguing flashbacks to 1927. Readers will agree even before its history of “murders and sudden disappearances” is revealed, as A Ghost Story charts the manor house and its occupants, living and not, over decades. As Mark faces visions, memories that aren’t his own, and hints of his own impending doom, A Ghost Story shifts between the novel’s 1990s present and creepy flashes of 1920s secrets and temptations, involving the wife of the original builder, Estrella, once “the star of society.”
Even when past and present slip into each other within the same chapter, Cooper keeps the narrative clear but its mysteries tantalizingly elusive. Her strong hand at evocative details (iron stairs, climbing ivy, ruffled gowns) never slows the narrative momentum, and the prose is charged with feeling. Full-color illustrations sprinkled throughout enhance the story's dreamlike quality. Fans of hauntings in a classical mode will enjoy this brisk tale, which boasts a shocking conclusion that readers will guess at while hoping for a happy ending.
Takeaway: A time-crossed ghost story that is equal parts haunting and suspenseful.
Great for fans of: Mary Downing Hahn’s Wait Till Helen Comes, Michelle Paver’s Wakenhyrst.
Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: B
Marketing copy: A
A life-changing trip that not everyone will make it out of.Mark agrees to go on a trip to the coast because he believes he will enjoy it. As the guest of the boss’s daughter, he isn’t exactly a part of the company he’s keeping, but he has great plans to be just that by the end of this experience. A trip with a bunch of rich people that he can network with is an opportunity he can’t pass up.
But when he arrives he starts to notice strange things happening in their hotel.The Ratmulen house has a haunted history that none of the guests are aware of. Mark soon finds himself waking in the mornings unsure of what transpired the night before and in a room that is not the one he was assigned. With the help of an unlikely ally he begins to piece together this mystery, but time is of the essence with All Hallows’ Eve just days away.
Barbara Cooper plays the long game in this tantalizing and mysterious paranormal journey.With a grand setting on the coast, it’s easy to forget just how curious the situations that happen really are. Mark should be having the time of his life in this environment. He’s a likable main character, so I read this book with a sense of hope that everything will work out just as planned. I believe that is due to the calmness throughout Cooper’s storytelling. Just when your curiosity is piqued, you realize that all the signs point to danger ahead.Cooper will make you second guess what’s really going on here, much like her characters do.
Mark navigates his way around his new environment seamlessly, but there’s something about him aside from his being an outsider that will make readers perk up during his chapters. In such an environment, it’s easy to dismiss his mysterious nights as a side effect of all the drinking going on, but as we learn more about the Ratmulen house, it’s clear that Mark may be in serious danger.
His lack of memory only ups the stakes as he has no clue of what happens after a certain point in the night, despite other party-goers telling him they saw him with a mysterious woman.Unsure of how real this woman is, he enlists the help of Sebastian to keep an eye on him and help him get to the bottom of these strange events. What they uncover is more than either of them bargained for.
Mixed in with all of these creepy events is a story of connection, finding your purpose, and what some people will do to attain that kind of freedom. I loved the complexity of this book and the ways in which Cooper displays universal human feelings.There’s a lot going on behind the scenes of this ghostly mystery that readers can enjoy dissecting.
I had a good time reading A Ghost Story, and I believe that other fans of crime and paranormal mystery will too.
Genre: Fantasy / Mystery Reviewed by Jaylynn Korre
