Monday, July 18, 2011

Past Midnight/Rising the Dead by Mara Purnhagen

Past Midnight by Mara Purnhagen

My Summary:

Charlotte Silver is seventeen-years-old, facing her senior year of high school in her sixth or is it seventh school. Needless to say, her parents move around a lot. They are scientists who research and shed doubt on the paranormal. There work looks a lot like ghost busters to outsiders and Charlotte doesn’t like the attention. She wants a normal family instead of the “team” that she has. Moving to a new house and a new school, Charlotte wants to hind the strangeness factor and fit in but she’s not the only one keeping secrets. Her new friend, Avery has secrets. The school outcast and very cute Jared has secrets. With all these secrets floating around with all the paranormal energy, things are bound to get interesting.

My Thoughts:

4 stars – a great read

Past Midnight has a different kind of world building than the normal paranormal book. This book isn’t filled with the believers protecting their secrets, but instead it’s filled with the non-believers hiding their secrets. It’s interesting that there were really two different stories going on that collided near the end of the book. Those two stories kept the pages turning for me. Just as a stumbling block came in place for one story, the other story took over. Twisting the two together was Charlotte. I liked Charlotte. She is a confident young woman who has learned to not back down from a bully, Bliss. She is also still trying to grow-up and she tries to avoid dealing with problems head-on. I liked how she came to do a better job with that. I liked her new friend, Avery. Avery has problems, lots of them, but she’s the cool cheerleader and she befriends Charlotte. I really liked that about her. Avery didn’t have to go out of her way to help Charlotte fit in but she did. It may have been her screaming for normalcy in her very troubled life but I liked it. I, also, liked Noah. I wish we had seen more of him. It’s clear that Charlotte likes him. I wish that little sub-plot could have found some face time but there is hope for the sequel.

If you are a paranormal fan, then this is great one to pick up.


Raising the Dead by Mara Purnhagen

My Summary:

Charlotte is still in the same house and school, which is saying something. Her parents have decided to hang around the same place for a few years and she is happy to have friends and consistency. That is until the rain causes flooding that leaves coffins floating around the city. When her parents get involved in the job of restoring the coffins to a civil war age cemetery, the paranormal energy is sure to follow.

My Thoughts:

3 stars – a good read

This story continues with familiar characters from book one, Past Midnight. I was happy to see that both Jared and Noah had a bigger role to play in this story. I was disappointed that Noah seems to have no interest in Charlotte. It’s interesting that Jared and Avery have started some kind of relationship, whether that’s just the mutual support after a great lose or more, I can’t tell yet. This novella felt so much like just a couple of extra chapters that got cut from either the end of book one or the beginning of book two. I hope that book two uses this story somehow otherwise it will be just so incomplete to me. I really enjoyed Past Midnight and I’m looking forward to One Hundred Candles but this one fell kind of flat.


 

2 comments:

  1. Past Midnight sounds really good! Enjoyed reading your reviews! Thank you for sharing!

    Happy Reading,
    Tammy (& Mike)

    ReplyDelete