Marissa Meyer

Mallory Fontaine can see ghosts. Although, she comes from a long line of witches with beautiful magic, she has none. After her mothers passing Mallory and her sister have been struggling to stay afloat. Mallory has been giving tours of the infamous House Saphir, as she is an expert on all things concerning the Saphir family. Well, so she thought anyways, and confidence is everything.

Count Bastien Saphir also known as Monsieur Le Bleu murdered three of his wives , and attempted to murder a fourth, centuries ago. As she gives the tour of the House Saphir, with the help of the first wife, and yes she is a ghost. One night Mallory is giving a tour, and everything gets turned even more upside down than it already was. In the middle of the tour Bastien’s great-great grandson and heir to the Saphir estate, Armand shows up wanting her help and that help comes with a hearty pay day. Its now her job to figure out hoe to rid his ancestral home of Le Bleu’s ghost. The task was more than she bargained for. Not only is he haunting, he is still injuring, and then murdering. Something no ghost should be able to do. As Mallory reflects on all she knows, she starts to suspect a ghost may not be up to all the trouble being caused.

This was a great young adult read. Most middle grade readers could read or listen to this as well depending on their ability to handle graphic scenes ( gore and murder ). Where there is one scene where two people are kissing, it does not go further than that , and most ” lustful ” thoughts are kept to a minimum and not very descriptive.

This has a gothic mystery tone to it , that could have been pushed further, however I also don’t think the story was lacking without that either. The paranormal aspects to this are well written. When Mallory comes across any creatures she kind of starts to mind dump what they are , what they can do, and how to hurt them. As she does this it feels more as a personality trait , however it gives the reader a sense of the creature and the type of danger they are really in. This is done in a way where it doesn’t feel like a stop narrative where your getting info on the creature, its done in a fluid way where it seems natural to Mallory and her character.

Where there is a romance subplot, it is not the main point of the story, nor does it dominate the story. It does add to it in a way that really shows that Mallory has grown from this experience.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Marissa Meyer as always does an amazing job writing a YA novel that not only appeals to the younger readers but us more seasoned readers as well. The characters were well written and flushed out. The pacing was on point. The twist and turns weren’t so out of the blue that you had no idea what’s going on (no one enjoys literary whiplash). It hit all the right points in my book.

The narrator for this book is Rebecca Soler, and as always she did an absolute amazing job bringing Mallory and the gang to life.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this ALC.