Read in one sitting, just couldn't stop turning the pages!

Dark Souls by Paula Morris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After reading Beneath the Shadows I was spoiled for reading anything else. Normally I move from one book to the next without taking a break in between, but I needed a short break to mourn the end of the last book. Then came Dark Souls. Fortunately this young adult novel was able to push through the post book fog. It did it so well that I found myself turning pages and reading all day until I turned the last page. Quite a thrilling ghost tale.

Miranda Tennant goes with her family to York, England. Her mother is leading an orchestra as a guest conductor and her professor father is presenting a paper on Richard III. After a tragic summer that no one can forget, the parents think the family trip abroad might help them all to move forward. At the start of the novel, Miranda and her brother Rob and friend Laura are in a car accident when a driver soars through a stop sign and broadsides their car. The friend Laura dies in the accident. Miranda sees her friend's ghost walk away from the accident, so now Miranda can see ghosts, and her brother Rob is trapped in the car just long enough to develop crushing claustrophobia. That's just the beginning. The trip to York, a very haunted city, brings the supernatural to roost within the family and Miranda begins to unravel a mystery that you won't see coming until the last couple chapters.

Written entirely from Miranda's point of view, we see things through the eyes of a fairly mature sixteen year-old girl. Though there is a budding relationship involved, there is no gushy romance novel feel. Also, Miranda is a gutsy girl, not a fading violet. Morris builds a gothic, atmospheric feel to the story and the book hold its promise of ghost stories, which abound in its pages. This was a truly suspense filled, entertaining read

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