Afterlife: A Shadows Series Novel by Cege Smith

 
 
 

Description
Twenty years have passed since the events that transpired inside the walls of the haunted Bradford mansion. On the eve of its demolition, it calls out to those that escaped it to come home…

It’s Thanksgiving vacation, and Morgan Mitchell returns home from college unexpectedly to find her parents, David and Ellie Mitchell, are mysteriously missing. Thinking they have taken a holiday trip and forgotten to tell her, Morgan settles in for a quiet vacation break alone. When some friends suggest exploring an old abandoned mansion due to be torn down the following week, she doesn’t think there’s any harm in going with them.

But this seemingly random invitation is one that proves not to be so random at all. Shadows from the past are coming for Morgan and her family, and soon she discovers that she is the only one who holds the key to saving them all. 


This was a quick read and my first time reading anything from the Shadows Series. As it is a "companion" to the series there may be pertinent details I am not aware of, but the story seems able to stand on it's own without having read the series.
Morgan, is a college student who suffers with a sleep paralysis night terrors type condition. She thinks she has it under control and is able to keep it a secret from most everyone. However a sleep over leads to a break up, and depressed she returns home for the holidays even though she had told her parents not to expect her.
Oddly enough her parents seem to have gone off somewhere without letting her know. They do not return her texts or calls, and their cars are in the garage but nobody is home. When Morgan accompanies some friends to an abandoned house rumored to be haunted She discovers that she didn't know as much about her parents or herself as she thought.
I received a complimentary copy for review

Whitefern by V.C. Andrews

Description

The long-awaited sequel to My Sweet Audrina, one of V.C. Andrews’s strangest, most beloved books—and now a Lifetime movie! Whitefern swallowed Audrina’s childhood—and now the sprawling Victorian mansion threatens her adult life too…

Audrina remembers a better time, when her husband, Arden, was a young man with a heart filled with devotion for her. He didn’t used to be this ambitious, expansive…this cruel. But then, the death of Audrina's father changed a great many things.

When the reading of her father’s will reveals that Audrina herself will control fifty-one percent of the family brokerage—the halls of Whitefern again don’t feel safe. Arden’s protestations become frantic, nearly violent. And while Audrina didn’t anticipate running the family business, she’s curious to do so. And she can’t help but wonder what had made her father change his will at the last minute? What did he know about Arden that she didn’t?

Trapped in the middle of it all: her fragile, simple sister—the beautiful, trusting Sylvia. Audrina promised her father she’d watch over the young woman. But after years of relative quiet, the dark days of Whitefern may have returned…

 

It's been at least 20 years if not more since I read My Sweet Audrina. I can't say I remember every detail about it but I remember that I liked it very much and so was quite anxious to read the sequel.

Audrina's life as a married woman has not seemed to mature her very much. She has much of the same naiveté and innocent too trusting nature of a young girl.

Her marriage to Arden has not turned out as she had hoped and although her father has left her controlling interest in his business she lacks the drive and maturity to do anything about it.  She spends most of her time caring for her developmentally challenged sister but due to her own too trusting nature she is not as vigilant in protecting her as one would hope.

If you read the first book then this is certainly worth a read but I found the plot quite predictable and it was fairly obvious how it would all end.

 

I received an advance copy for review.

Victoria Crossing by Michael Wallace

Description

Driven from Ireland during the potato famine, Protestant Victoria MacPherson and Catholic Maeve O’Reilly find themselves thrown together aboard a Manhattan-bound ship. After a treacherous journey, they arrive in New York City in 1851, with only a small purse of silver and the promise that Maeve’s brother will find them there. But when he doesn’t show, the girls are quickly conned out of their savings by a smooth-talking scam artist, leaving the two destitute in the tenements of Lower Manhattan.
As the women work their way from seamstresses earning pennies a day to proprietresses starting their own shop, their success is endangered by the city’s corruption and a disgraceful secret that Victoria has been keeping from Maeve. Jealous rivals, religious prejudice, and the shocking revelation of Victoria’s shameful past threaten to break their bond and reduce the women to rags. But will their strength, courage, and spirit be enough to help them survive and thrive once again?


Victoria and Maeve meet for the first time on the treacherous journey to New York City, but that meeting is not the first time they have seen each other. Victoria is hoping Maeve will not recall the circumstances under which she could have seen her before. The pair become best friends and adversity makes that bond grow stronger. Both have lost parents and when Maeve's brother does not meet them in New York as promised she fears the possibility that he is lost to her as well.
Homeless, starving, and penniless after being robbed of the money Victoria brought with her on the ship they end up living in a slum and working for slave wages. As they begin at last to build the life they dreamed of, a brutal attack has Victoria planning her revenge, and I was cheering her on all the way. I was thoroughly engrossed in this story and didn't want it to end.

I received an advance copy for review
 

All Is Not Forgotten by Wendy Walker

Description

"In the small, affluent town of Fairview, Connecticut, everything seems picture perfect.
Until one night when young Jenny Kramer is attacked at a local party. In the hours immediately after, she is given a controversial drug to medically erase her memory of the violent assault. But, in the weeks and months that follow, as she heals from her physical wounds, and with no factual recall of the attack, Jenny struggles with her raging emotional memory. Her father, Tom, becomes obsessed with his inability to find her attacker and seek justice while her mother, Charlotte, prefers to pretend this horrific event did not touch her perfect country club world.
As they seek help for their daughter, the fault lines within their marriage and their close-knit community emerge from the shadows where they have been hidden for years, and the relentless quest to find the monster who invaded their town - or perhaps lives among them - drive this psychological thriller to a shocking and unexpected conclusion."

Jenny Kramer is an innocent, likeable carefree young girl until the night that innocence is savagely ripped away when she is viciously, brutally raped at a party. Her mother believes that having a controversial drug treatment to erase all memory of the rape will help her get over it. Her Father reluctantly agrees but in his heart he feels it isn't the right thing to do.  Too late they realize this treatment didn't really help Jenny and will only make it more difficult to bring the rapist to justice. A psychiatrist is brought in to help Jenny deal with her emotional turmoil and to help her recover her memory, but he has a secret agenda of his own.
This was a very suspenseful psychological thriller with twists and turns that I never saw coming,

I received an advance copy for review