Posted on  27/10/2023 15:38:44

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

'The living versus the dead' in an edge of the seat haunted house whodunit of the best kind.



I kid you not people.
Find Them is everything a good ghost murder mystery should be like!

Chilling... atmospheric... gripping... unputdownable. From the very first chapter to the very last.
It starts with a bang and doesn't let up till the last page. Something that's quite difficult to achieve with any book, but Julia Ash does it in style.

Here, she gives us the story of Nora and Dex, who want to escape their city's rising crime and build a home on a grassy hilltop overlooking a lake and wildlife preserve in Pennsylvania.

"But sometimes people didn't get what they wanted. Trouble sought them out. At no fault of their own."
Life has a twisted sense of humor after all, and Nora's once normal world is slowly but surely turned upside down. Because her forever home is haunted.
I'm not gonna give you any details about the why or how, because it's best you go into this blind and discover it all alongside Nora. But I will tell you what to expect.

An excellent page turner that ticks all the boxes of a well-crafted paranormal murder mystery.

The pace is excellent, with stakes set higher at every step. The mystery intriguing to the point of addiction and the setting so well described that you can easily picture every nook and cranny.

The characters are the perfectly imperfect kind who could be your neighbour next door, both main and side cast included. Each with their own individual voice and specific quirks, practically leaping from the page. But my favourite was Nora. Your average freeze on the spot afraid of your own shadow kind of girl who could actually be me. Her growth and transformation from that frozen-in-fear young woman to the scared-but-determined-to-kick-ass lady with a purpose .... masterfully done!!
I LOVED Nora.

And the best part of it all... the atmosphere! Ash manages to convey such a vivid atmospheric picture that you literally get that eerie need to look over your shoulder where something might be lurking in the shadows. Goosebumps included. I'm going to have to tip my hat to her for that.

This novel doesn't read like fiction. It feels so damn real that you leave and breathe the story alongside Nora.
And since the author herself grew up in a haunted house in Pennsylvania, I do have to wonder how much of Find Them was based on real life experience. Most of it I'd presume.

Find Them is the best ghost mystery I've read this year.
A must read if you're a fan of the genre.

Happy reading everyone
and remember:

"When you fuck with karma, it'll high side you on the asphalt"

And sometimes you might just need to grab it by the horns and point it in the right direction.