Nah, not so much....
When I first started reading, I was really confused. The first several chapters are all about a guy named Sam who is taking a plane from one city to another with a really important package, and about how he doesn't really have any friends, and about how the flight attendant keeps hitting on him.
He checks into the hotel, goes to catch a bite to eat, and is murdered; here's our ghost.
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| The ghosts in this book are not designed to be scary--much like this sheet apparition. |
Then, another guy, Rocky, comes to the hotel to do an investigation, and since this guy is...or was... a psychic medium, he ends up hooking up with Sam to solve his own murder. Oh, and he's also trying to find the contents of that package, which have gone missing, though that's just kind of nonchalantly thrown in there several chapters after Sam dies. Why is he looking for the contents? Again, not really explained. It might be because it was his duty to deliver them. It might be because he wants to give them to Rocky. Who knows? We don't find out why until the very end of the book, and even then the reason isn't stated with conviction.
Much of what the characters do in the book isn't really done with conviction, as a matter of fact. Most of them were rather two-dimensional. And we don't really know much about what many of them look like either, including Rocky and Sam, except for some stereotypical comments thrown in throughout. Sam is a person of short stature, and there are a ton of short jokes all through the entire book. Personally, I found this a little offensive. I don't think many people would meet someone and immediately start making fun of them for the way they were born. Even the "good guys" tend to do this in Ms. Price's book. There's also a lot of poking fun at over-weight people. Most of the ghosts are also stereotypes--"saloon girl," "Hispanic woman," "disco dancer," etc. I find that authors often tend to use these stereotypical types of characters when they haven't got a lot of experience writing or they've thrown a book together so quickly they haven't put a lot of time into developing their characters. We don't really know what they look like, what motivates them, where they came from, where they are going, or what they want out of life/death. This makes it really hard to connect to them or to care about what happens to them. I felt like Sam was the only character in the book who even mattered to me, and by the time I felt a connection to him, he was already dead. (I don't think that's really a spoiler since it's kind of spelled out in the book description.)
It wasn't all bad, though. The story was complex, if not perfectly executed, and once you get into the heart of the story, the pace picks up and keeps moving. I was bored for the first three or four chapters, but after that I kept reading until it was over. There is room for a sequel, and if one is written, I hope that the characters are more developed.
Once again, like many of the books I've read recently, there is certainly room for another proofread. There are some misspelled words, sentences missing words, etc. It's not the worst I've read, but it's far from perfect as well. Many of the Amazon reviewers noted this. I find it interesting that a Michael Price commented back to one such reviewer that he didn't notice any of those mistakes. Maybe he is the author's husband or dad who happened to be the proofreader? I don't know. Just an observation....
If you're looking for a light read, and you really like books where the ghosts aren't scary, then maybe Haunted Ends is the read for you. You can buy it here at the current price of $1.99. You can read my three star Amazon review here.
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