Published 13 July 2010
His love captivated her... his secrets might kill her.
Since her sister’s mysterious death, Persephone “Phe” Archer has been plagued by a series of disturbing dreams. Determined to find out what happened to her sister, Phe enrolls at Devenish Prep in Shadow Hills, Massachusetts—the subject of her sister’s final diary entry.
After stepping on campus, Phe immediately realizes that there’s something different about this place—an unexplained epidemic that decimated the town in the 1700s, an ancient and creepy cemetery, and gorgeous boy Zach—and somehow she’s connected to it all.
But the more questions she asks and the deeper she digs, the more entangled Phe becomes in the haunting past of Shadow Hills. Finding what links her to this town…might cost her her life.
I'm actually doing something really heinous and reviewing this book even though I never finished it. BUT, I like got 30 pages to the end, so I think I have enough information to make a full informed opinion. See, the thing is, I think i'm in the minority when I say this book was not for me. To actually read over 300 pages and decide that I didn't care enough to find out the conclusion to the story is a little dire.
I never connected to the characters in this book, not even Phe. And that name just makes me all kinds of mad, isn't it ironic that a book that plays on Greek mythology has the main character and her dead sister named after Greek Goddess? This irony was lost on me, because no just no. Phe was infuriating to the point where I couldn't listen to anymore of her internal dialogue. Seriously Phe? Why you going to a school just because your sister writes about it in a journal. I mean, I know its a boarding school and they kind of rock, but you never gave me any solid reason why you would just up sticks and move. It just never sat right with me.
Even the secondary characters got on my last nerve, to be quite truthful, I can't even remember what any of them are called. And the love interest? i can't remember his name either and that is bad. I even think he was blond. I know, I KNOW!! He was blond and I didn't like him. SNORE. Where was the sizzle, the connection, the swoonworthy scenes? I never got none of this. Instead I got a teenage girl who was wayyyyyy too emo trying to uncover the secrets of the town. I freakin love mystery, there is nothing better than that feeling you get when you think you have uncovered something, only for it to get turned on its head in some massive plot twist. But this mystery? yeah, I don't even know what she was trying to uncover.
This was a case of wanting to weave a large number of plot threads and intrigue into one book and not quite hitting the mark. The powers that the people of Shadow Hills possess are never fully explained, so much so that i dont even think the characters knew more about them than I did. I have no clue why Phe wanted to go to Shadow Hills and what her deep connection to the place was. It was too much, the plot was too big and diverted the attention away from the characters and their development. I am left with more questions than answers and I have no desire to find them out. Mediocre at best.
OH OH I do seem to be the only person who didn't quite love this book, so in the interests of full disclosure, here are some links to more positive reviews.
Steph @ Steph Su Reads
Lori @ Pure Imagination
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