Ghost Novel Review: Phantom Summer
Blog Tour and Review: Phantom Summer
Welcome to the book review and blog tour stop for Amy Sparling’s Phantom Summer. First, I’d like to thank Dianne from Oops I Read a Book Again for making this process so easy. What a gift it is for authors to have a blog tour coordinator. It is my pleasure to host a blog stop (my first!), so I just hope I’m doing it correctly. Without further ado, here are the details:
Title: Phantom Summer
Author: Amy Sparling
Publisher: 336Love
Date of Publication: September 5, 2013
Genre: contemporary YA with ghosts
Summary:
Seventeen-year-old Taylor Gray moves to Sterling Island to get over her dead boyfriend. Mom’s cool with letting her crash on the couch, but Taylor needs to get a job before the lights are cut off again.
When the tall, dark and crazy Raine Tsunami offers her a position at his thriving ghost tour business, she figures it’s an easy way to make some cash. Taylor isn’t afraid of ghosts–that crap is as fake as her mom’s boob job. She loves their adventures on the historic island, especially the secret places he shows her when the crowds go home. So what if all the ghost stories are just legends?
When Taylor comes face to face with a ghost and Raine crosses the line between friend and boyfriend–Taylor’s new life collides with her haunted past.
Review: An underdog who battles self-blame and maternal neglect, Taylor is an eminently likeable protagonist. She refuses to surrender to the caprices of fate; instead, she works and plans to build a life for herself, however humble. Her worst enemy is the guilt over her friend’s death that Taylor wears like a hair shirt (and that eventually readers may find a bit wearing).
Secondary characters are drawn well. Margret the motherly historical society matron is a delight as is Anna the kind new friend. People are attracted to Taylor’s honest and unpretentious demeanor, and I found it endearing that Taylor cannot fathom what others see in her. As her confidence develops, she is finally able to embrace her new community and envision a relationship with the affable Raine. Though the ghost tour venture begins as a need for ready cash, it grows into sweet encounters in which Taylor and Reine explore their new relationship.
Last year my daughter Manda and I embarked on a ghost tour of San Francisco and found ourselves thoroughly entertained with thrilling stories of troubled apparitions and the kind of local history you rarely read in textbooks. So it was no surprise to me that my favorite passages of Phantom Summer were those that followed Taylor and Raine down dark alleys and shadowed streets. Through these characters, I was able to indulge myself once again in the excitement of ghost lore and night walks.
One thing I found missing from Phantom Summer was a definitive climax. The ending sort of devolves into a repetitive angst fest rather than rising to a climactic moment. A ghost novel provides the perfect setting for a dramatic and poignant ending, so I found the lack disappointing.
I believe teen girls, especially those dealing with the loss of a relationship, will find this book engaging as it follows a young person’s journey through grief in all its incarnations. Taylor’s pragmatic, if pessimistic, approach to love and life will bolster the courage of any reader who finds herself fighting self-doubt, yearning to move forward but hampered by the past.
About Amy SparlingAmy Sparling is a native Texan with a fear of cold weather and a coffee addiction that probably needs an intervention. She loves books, sarcasm, nail polish and paid holidays. She lives near the beach with her daughter, one spoiled rotten puppy and a cat who is most likely plotting to take over the world. Amy Sparling is a pen name for YA author Cheyanne Young.
Website: http://www.amysparling.com/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/AuthorAmySparling
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Amy_Sparling
Tour-wide giveaway: We have an awesome prize! $50 Amazon GC and a SIGNED paperback of PHANTOM SUMMER open internationally!
