The Haunted by J.A. Templeton

The Haunted by J.A. Templeton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Yet again, J.A Templeton managed to have me jumping at every creaking floorboard in my house. There are a lot of floorboards too and it is an old house so there is a lot of creaking. I don't know what it is about this series of books but the author just pulls out 'creepy' factor in an amazingly talented fashion.

The ghosts are definitely well portrayed. They aren't your typical shaking chains and howling sort of ghosts, though they do tend to pull their share of trickery and haunting! Peter, an eleven year old boy ghost, haunts the school because it is fun there and everything is always changing. He likes to mess with the teachers and look at the pretty girls. It's little details like that which make them more then ghosts. They are people...who are dead.

Other than my obvious love for the ghosts, there is also the fact that in this book we were introduced to some new (human) characters that added to its greatness. There's Maddie, who is Cait's cousin who lives with her and another new character who I won't talk about too much because than it would be a spoiler. Also, we learn more about Kade, Cait's brother who was gone for most of the first book. Kade and Riley's relationship is a large focus of the book and while Ian and Riley seemed to just fall in love immediately, this relationship takes some time to develop which I enjoyed. It was a nice change from the regular love at first sight story line.

The writing was excellent, as usual and the story flowed right along. I am not sure if the book actually was a little short or if I just read really fast and made it seem that way but my only complaint would be that it didn't seem finished to me. Usually, even in a sequel, there is a conflict that is solved or at least kind of wrapped up by the end of the book. It might not be the main conflict but we are generally left with some sort of conclusion somewhere in the last few chapters. Even in books with cliff hangers, something big happens that is leading into the next book or changes something we thought was for sure wouldn't change.

This books ending made me not realize it was the ending. I was confused. Where did the rest of the book go? It felt like it was a chapter ending, not a book ending. Like I said, it could have just been that I read quickly and thus felt the book should be longer but it just seemed on the abrupt side to me! That is a small complaint though, in regards to an excellent book. If you haven't read this series, I highly recommend you go pick it up!



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