Title: Ari
Series: To Each His Ghost, #1
Author: S. M. Boyce
Rating: 4/5 Stars
I received a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. This is a spoiler free review.
Summary
Ari Bowers is a young, teenaged girl who has an obsession with watching ghost shows. When a popular boy from school, Marcus Wagner, asks her out on a date, she accepts, however she had not realized they would be going to the infamous haunted farmhouse. While there, darkness attaches itself to the pair and they must figure out how to rid themselves of this attachment before either of them get hurt. Will they be able to work together to save themselves or will the darkness win?
Review
I have only read one other book in the horror/paranormal category so I am not exceptionally experienced with this genre. However, I enjoyed my relative introduction into paranormal novels. This novel was also great to read during the Halloween season. It put me in the mood to sip warm tea, curl up in my blanket, and read about ghosts and hauntings.
Ari is a lot like I am. I also enjoy ghost shows and I felt out of place often when I was in middle school and high school. She is a reasonable character who did everything in her power to save herself and Marcus, who was being a jerk. He refused to believe anything Ari told him, assuming that the experience in the farmhouse was a prank. It wasn’t until something dramatic happened to himself that he realized that she was telling the truth and this did not occur until late in the story. I spent most of the book hating Marcus and everything he did. Marcus’s character does receive a redemption arc however I really did not like him at the beginning of the story. I spent much of this book worried that Ari and Marcus were going to end up together and I am glad that this does not happen. But of course, Marcus also receives a backstory, which made me develop sympathy for him. I think Marcus is a character who is a lot more complicated than I was expecting at the beginning and I look forward to learning more about it in further novels in this series.
The suspense in this story is very good. It actually felt like I was watching a good thriller film and I was not expecting this from a book. I was also fully invested in the action scenes, which I usually skim in other novels. This book is full of things that I was not expecting, especially things that happen to the characters in the middle of the book. I thought the book would be over then but it continued, which I appreciated, because it gave the character time for redemption. I especially like the redemption that Marcus gets. I spent more than half of the book despising Marcus for being ignorant and yet he developed the most throughout the story.
This book is perfect for anyone who loves thriller, ghost, and paranormal stories. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey that the characters took throughout the plot and I am excited for learning more in future stories from the series.
Disclaimer: Clicking the cover of the book will take you to book depository, where you can purchase the book. This is an affiliate link, meaning that I will make a small commission from every purchase made, with no impact on you.