Late to the party, (this collection has previously published stories from all over the place, and was itself published back in May) but this is a really really good combined ghost story.
Sparrow Hill Road
Seanan McGuire
ISBN: 9780756409616
Read October 2, 2014
Doesn't everyone look for a good ghost story to set them up for Halloween? If you do, I'd strongly suggest you add this one to your rotation.
This is such a good cumulative ghost story. Fair warning, the book is (from what I can tell researching) an edited compilation of previously existing stories and short fiction about a single character and world, and as such, some of the stories either slightly disagree with each other, or (more often) are a bit repetitive, as the basic introductions and world mechanics must be introduced as part of what was originally intended to be a single story standing alone. It didn't bother me, because I greatly enjoyed McGuire's worldbuilding and thought that the characters inhabiting this world were interesting and quirky, but that repetition seems to have really bugged the snot out of some readers,
Summary: It seems like everyone knows the ghost story of the Girl in the Diner, or the Phantom Prom Date. Those two stories especially - the first of a trucker's angel who appears as a hitchhiker and saves her driver from impending accidents, and the second of a murderous jilted ghost who kills boys in retribution from being stood up at her prom - have haunted Rose Marshall since 1952. Or, more appropriately, Rose has haunted the roads, and the stories have slowly evolved.
The reality is closer to the first than the second (although I have to say there was a solid tease that there IS a darker version of Rose out there, homecoming away, and would I ever love to see the story of that realization and confrontation unfold) and Rose has been around longer as a ghost than she ever was as a living girl. She's just starting to get the hang of the rules of the undead world, of twilight ghosts interacting with the living, and the midnight world of long-dead ghosts interacting with strange and terrible creatures of myth. She is lucky to have survived this long, because she's being hunted by someone who seems to be both living and dead, and needs her soul for fuel.
Despite the chronological (roughly) progression of the story, we don't get a solid "here is the ending of the book" resolution. Again, I'm pretty sure that this is because we're just seeing a collected version of all the existing stories about Rose. I really really hope that we'll get MORE stories, or perhaps a novella or novel about her and her world, but for this one, having a character wrapped up in a pretty "the end" bow would cut off so many possibilities that I'm really not surprised at all to come away without a final resolution to her through-line conflict. The 'miniboss fight' that we did get was good, but not amazingly climactic, which makes the open-ended sense a little stronger.
On that note, I did feel like our antagonist could have been a smidge more active or at least a bit more present in the stories. He came off a little weak in the aggregate, even though his individual appearances were suitably tense. I'm not entirely sure why the overall impression weakens like that, but it might be that we never actually see any consequences of his predation (other than Bethany, who was 1) partly spared, and 2) blase about her experiences).
I'm immediately passing this on to one of my friends, and I very rarely do this. It's just up his alley tho, and I think he'll enjoy it.
Similar ghostly or american-creepy reads:
The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)
The Boneshaker (Kate Milford)
Anna Dressed in Blood (Kendare Blake)
anything written by Charles de Lint
American Gods and Anansi Boys (Neil Gaiman)
The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman)
The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane (Laird Koenig)
Mad Maudlin (Bedlam's Bard series, Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edghill)
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