As a child, Miles
witnesses the murder of his mother by a man in a chicken suit. Years
later with a family of his own, he’s still haunted by the murder,
but he has a way to find out who the killer was. His father left him
the plans for a machine that can talk to the dead. The plans were
stolen from Thomas Edison’s laboratory and kept secret for many
years. Miles builds the machine and hopes to talk to his mother but a
storm rises
Miles tells his
wife, Lily, and his daughter, Eva, to get to high ground before the
flood. He instructs his son to destroy the machine. When Eva wakes
up, she has a gash on the back of her head and no memory of the
flood. Her mother tells her that her father and brother are dead and
that they must go into hiding to escape the killer.
This begins the
story of Eva and her search for the truth about her family. The novel
is partly mystery, partly paranormal happenings, and partly a
thriller. Eva, a feisty teen, is the heroine of the story. After her
mother is killed. Eva goes into hiding in a strange area called
Burntown. There she meets oddball characters like the Fire Eaters, a
group of women with mystical talents, Pru, a cafeteria lady with
hidden dreams, Theo, a brilliant girl who owes money to a dangerous
man, and others.
The story starts
slowly. There are so many threads that need to woven together at the
conclusion that it takes awhile to get all the characters and their
stories on stage. I enjoyed the diverse characters, but I thought
there were too many. The problem became obvious when the author tells
the story from many different viewpoints.
The novel speeds up
about halfway through and ends by bringing all the threads together
for a surprising conclusion. If you enjoy mystery and suspense with a
touch of the paranormal and a plethora of unusual characters, you may
enjoy this book.
I received this book
from Net Galley for this review.
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