Title: The Ghost Hunter’s Daughter
Author: Caroline Flarity
Series: n/a
Solid plot, interesting mythology, characters and style need some work
I would like to thank Caroline Flarity, East Side Press, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book won’t become a favorite, but I enjoyed it. Spent most of today binging it. I easily became immersed in Anna’s world and was intrigued by Flarity’s take on paranormal mythology and the way she married it almost seamlessly with science. And after I realized all the characters were assholes or major creeps—or both—on purpose, I started to care about them. Well, the ones I was supposed to care about.
Anna wasn’t a particularly strong protagonist until perhaps the climax. She was generally rather unlikable; yeah, I get that she was being emotionally poisoned, but even in the beginning she seemed selfish, self-pitying, and had a sulky, resentful attitude. She did realize later that she hadn’t been a very good friend or daughter of late, and that redeemed her a bit.
Also, I was a little baffled and disappointed by how Anna handled situations. Or didn’t handle them, I guess. She seemed to think stoically bearing humiliation or just walking away from something was dignified and commendable, and I understand the merits of that sentiment and where it comes from. I was taught to walk away and not engage an antagonist, too. But there’s a difference between keeping your chin up or refusing to engage and ignoring a confrontation because you’re too scared or lazy to actually do something about it. She snapped back at Denton for putting her failed quiz on display—but she didn’t turn him in. Don’t feed trolls, but also don’t let them think you’ll take their crap.
I liked Freddy and Doreen well enough. Neither made a huge impression or were particularly endearing, but I didn’t dislike them. I was glad when Doreen got over herself and decided to speak her opinions more often. I hope she held to that. I had no objections to Freddy and Anna being a thing, though I’m not sure I felt the chemistry. It took me a while to warm up to Geneva; I remained suspicious throughout the book that there would be some twist that revealed she was somehow the villain, or at least complicit. But by the end when she was very firmly a good guy, I was totally on board with her as a character and with her and Jack maybe getting together. She might have been the most likable character in the story.
Shout-out to Penelope. You deserved better, Peeps girl.
Question: Why was Anna always referring to her dad or Doreen’s mom or Freddy’s mom by their first names? It was immediately noticeable and weird. At first, when it was just with Jack, I thought it was a way of showing her lack of regard for him, of demonstrating how distant their relationship had become, and I thought that was a clever touch. For good or ill, many children make the deliberate choice to use their parents’ given names. But then she did it with Cindy and Gloria, and I was back to baffled.
Writing-wise, Flarity can work on making her characters more likable, but she also needs to keep a rein on POV. Nothing outside Anna’s POV was necessary. Not Izzy’s, not Jack’s, not Freddy’s. Not one of them provided any unique information that I couldn’t have inferred or understood from Anna’s perspective. Changing to those viewpoints was random and jarring, unhelped by styling it in italics—worse, Izzy’s POV just plain confused me and I wasted time backing up and reading it again trying to understand what the hell was happening. Those POVs really irritated me. Her editor should have taken a big ol’ red pen to them.
Her plot seemed pretty solid, though. The only hole I can think of cursorily is just a tiny one that can probably be easily excused. Water softeners. If adding salt to the town’s water helped to purify it, how did water softeners factor in? Maybe households that used them weren’t poisoned as badly? Maybe the salt concentration wasn’t enough to make much difference? I’m unclear as to whether salt alone can do much cleansing or if it’s only useful if paired with a blessing. But yeah, it was an automatic thought for me: Anna’s putting salt in the water to help cleanse it? Lucky me, I do that on my own every few months.
Two random points: First, Coach Pickens’s death was announced as if it were significant, but I have no idea what it was supposed to signify. Just that he happened to be a casualty of the demon’s influence? I’m super okay with that.
Second, I think there might have been a continuity error. I’m pretty sure it was said more than once that Doreen lived quite close to Anna, and that Freddy lived further. In ch 19 for sure, Anna said Dor’s place was closer. Then in chapter 20, she said Freddy’s house was on the way to Dor’s. How can Dor’s house be closer to Anna’s and therefore a logical first stop, and yet Freddy’s house is on the way there, in the two blocks between Dor’s and Anna’s? Maybe that was fixed or clarified in the final draft.
Lastly, I wanted to touch on genre and tone. You can call it horror, but it didn’t scare me in the least. Creeped me out, definitely—the people more than the entities—but I won’t be keeping the lights on tonight. I wonder if it’s because Anna didn’t seem to be all that scared of the paranormal activity. Not much, anyway. She was used to it and took most of it in stride. The only one that really shook her was the demon because it was on a whole other level. The reader takes cues from the narrator, and if the narrator isn’t scared, the reader won’t be, either.
Regarding tone, Flarity gets deliciously dark—yet almost feels like a tease. She implies, infers, and even describes some really dark things—suicidal thoughts, abuse, sexual molestation of minors, just to name a few—yet she never actually calls them what they are. She was rarely if ever frank about it; pretended to be, but remained vague. She referred to sex—a lot, these teenagers are freaking nymphos—or maybe just teenagers—but never actually talked about sex. I had no idea if I was supposed to assume Anna had had sex with that Michael guy or if they’d just hit all the other bases. It’s like Flarity wanted to explore dark themes but was afraid of being vulgar or offensive. Case in point, she’ll use “damn” and “shit” but won’t touch “fuck.” I get the YA factor, but don’t coddle that demographic. They don’t need it. Myself, I’m a straightforward person, no patience for dancing around the point, so personally I think if you’re going to go there, fucking go there, or use a lighter tone.
Overall, Flarity has a lot of talent, especially in regards to mythology, and can tell a good story, but there are a couple areas she can work on going forward.
