Saturday 1 August 2015

REVIEW: The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts by K.C. Tansley

Bookish Details:
Series: The Unbelievables #1
Pages: 256 Paperback
Publisher: Beckett Publishing Group
Release Date: August 1st 2015
Buy it From: Amazon - Amazon UK

Synopsis:

Kat Preston doesn’t believe in ghosts. Not because she’s never seen one, but because she saw one too many. Refusing to believe is the only way to protect herself from the ghost that tried to steal her life. Kat’s disbelief keeps her safe until her junior year at McTernan Academy, when a research project for an eccentric teacher takes her to a tiny, private island off the coast of Connecticut.

The site of a grisly mystery, the Isle of Acacia is no place for a girl who ignores ghosts, but the ghosts leave Kat little choice. Accompanied by her research partner, Evan Kingsley, she investigates the disappearance of Cassie Mallory and Sebastian Radcliffe on their wedding night in 1886. Evan’s scientific approach to everything leaves Kat on her own to confront a host of unbelievables: ancestral curses, powerful spells, and her strange connection to the ghosts that haunt Castle Creighton.

But that’s all before Kat’s yanked through a magic portal and Evan follows her. When the two of them awaken 129 years in the past with their souls trapped inside the bodies of two wedding guests, everything changes. Together, Kat and Evan race to stop the wedding-night murders and find a way back to their own time—and their own bodies—before their souls slip away forever.

My Review:
Ghosts, a murder mystery, and even time travel, this exciting first installment in The Unbelievables series has it all.

This book follows Kat as she is sent to the magnificent Castle Creighton to try and solve a murder that happened 129 years ago. Along with the added pressure of trying to break a curse, Kat and her fellow researchers have just a matter of weeks to figure out what is causing the death of first-born Radcliffe sons on either their honeymoon, or their 23rd birthday, whichever comes beforehand.

This story just ticked all of the right boxes for me. I have always adored stories that feature ghosts, so I was immediately intrigued by the synopsis. Then to find out it included historical murder mysteries and some time travel, too, made me even more excited. So it's safe to say I had high hopes for this book, and I was not left disappointed.

Kat has been able to see ghosts for as long as she could remember, but after a spooky ordeal as child when a ghost tried to possess her, a spirit named Toria stepped in to help. She warned Kat to block the spirits out by ceasing to believe in them. That was when Kat started to label ghosts as the Unbelievables.

After years of successfully avoiding belief in the Unbelievables, studying a historical murder rakes up her own past that she can no longer run from. At Castle Creighton, Kat can't continue to pretend that ghosts don't exist.

Whilst Kat and a fellow researcher, Evan, are investigating the murder, they stumble through a portal to the past, where they must witness the days leading up to the wedding night on which the murder occurred.

Reading this book, I felt like someone had taken all of the story elements I love and mixed them together to create the perfect combination. Ghosts, mysteries, and time travel. What more could you possibly ask for?

Along with the awesome plot, we're also treated to a fantastic set of characters. Kat is wonderful, and I love how she develops over the course of the story. I think there's so much more of her that we still haven't seen, so I'm excited to see her progression over the course of this series.

I also loved Kat's sweet and genuine friendship with Morgan, and also her developing relationship with Evan. Seeing them constantly get on each others nerves at first, only to watch them be thrown into the past together was a great element to the plot. The pair being forced to live through this nightmare together brings them closer, and I'm definitely excited to see how they move on from that in the second book.

The mystery was paced out beautifully and kept me guessing throughout the story. Just when you think you're figuring it out, you discover there's more to it than you originally thought. It kept me needing to read on, so I had plenty of those 'just one more chapter' moments. Also, the fact that the characters are faced with a race-against-time situation makes for some real heart-stopping scenes.

The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts is such a promising start to what I predict will be a thrilling series. It was exciting and fast paced throughout, and I've been utterly sucked into the mysteries of Kat's world. I can't wait to see what lies ahead for her and the others. 

*Also: on my reading wishlist for 2015, I said I wanted to find a bad-ass female character who wore glasses - I guess I can tick that one off my wishlist now! 

**Another also: I'll be posting an awesome interview with K.C. Tansley next week, so be sure to stop by and check it out!

Royal Rating:




2 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for this terrific review! :) You made my release week so amazing with your words.

    ReplyDelete

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