Shine House (Emmie Rose Haunted Mystery prequel)
Author: Dean rasmussen
3.5 out of 5 stars
Emmie has the unfortunate ability to see the dead, but not all of the dead. She only sees the spirits of dead children. When her friend Angela invites her to spend spring break with her family, Emmie jumps at the chance to get away from the spirits she sees. Unfortunately, nine years previously, the next door family, including their daughter Lily, died during a supposed burglary gone wrong. Emmie starts to think that she’ll never get away from the dead, especially since she can’t help but want to help these children move on. Will she be able to help Lily move on, or will the family’s killer stop her first?
The ending of this book was really good. It was set up very well, and I did not see it coming at all. However, the rest of the plot, and how it was written, felt a bit disjointed. Sometimes I was like, “Wait, when did she figure that out, or why is this coming up now?”
Otherwise the story was well written. There were very detailed descriptions of the house and surrounding area that Emmie is staying at. And there was a creepy feeling from Lily’s actions, which increased with Emmie’s anxiety and her not being able to talk to anyone about it.
I liked Emmie. Her ability causes her a lot of distress, but she cares too much to be able to turn away from Lily when she can help her. The other characters were pretty well written, but some of them came across as weirdly intense and almost distrustful of Emmie, which would have made sense later in the story but not in the very beginning. I think the author was setting up one of the characters as a red herring, which sort of worked, but they were a little heavy handed with it.
Due to these issues, I decided to rate this novella 3.5 out of 5 stars. I did like Emmie and the concept of her only seeing child spirits enough that I would be willing to read more in the series. Plus, the books in the main series are a lot longer so the issues I had with this novella might not be present in them.
Price through Amazon Kindle: $0
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CBQLHGVH
(I do not benefit from the use of this link.)