This turned out quite well, and I am interested in picking up the rest of the series at some point, but it took quite some time to grow on me.

 

I think a chunk of that was Flavia, which is curious because her character description was the reason I picked up the books. I loved the idea of a young, clever girl chemist. In practice, though, it took me quite some time to actually connect with her. She was a bit too methodical and far too interested on playing chemisty-based pranks on her (admittedly annoying) older sisters. It took a long time for her to display any attachments to anyone or anything but the idea of chemistry, and it made her feel overly dispassionate and kind of one-dimensional.

 

Throughout the course of the novel, especially in the very last bits, she warmed up a bit and started displaying different facets of her personality, so I did eventually settle in with her. Her sisters remained extremely annoying and her father was kind of questionable as well; I guess I can't blame her for turning out a bit cold, but it made for a harder read for me since the chemistry was not quite enough to drive the plot for as long as it was supposed to do so.

 

Once things picked up a bit and we started getting more information, the story was interesting, though I did figure out early on who and a hefty chunk of what/why. The "who" was almost too obvious in a "whodunnit," personally, but the background of everyone and the convoluted (in the best sense--this is a mystery!) plotline and character connections were intriguing enough that I enjoyed the novel.

 

I'm interested enough, now that I've formed a bit of an attachment to Flavia, to see where the rest of the series goes, but I'm not in a rush. It seems like it would be hard, given Flavia is a child and has a child's limited mobility, to have an entire series of mysteries with her as the star, but Miss Marple rarely traveled either and mysteries just fell in her lap, so this is clearly a workable problem. I'll be fascinated to see how it is overcome in this series. 

 

This was a good read, but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the first book.

 

A chunk of that is how long it took to really get going. It seemed like Cas kind of dicked around seeing Anna in horrible situations for an awfully long time before anything actually came of it. Watching those scenes play out was pretty horrific, as well. The pacing of the book felt off as a sequel. It felt too much like a movie, setting up the scares before the big hurrah at the end. It wasn't badly written, and chunks of it were quite scary, but after the first book, I didn't want scares so much as I wanted to know what was going on with Anna! A lot of the scares were good, though; the imagery is the sort of stuff that sticks with you, which is impressive.

 

I enjoyed the addition of other ghost-hunting stuff, and the idea that this was an ancient thing that had a history, because I didn't get that feeling from the first book, although it makes perfect sense. Getting to meet some people who did the same thing but had another outlook on it was fascinating; it fleshed out the world quite a bit.

 

The side plot with Carmel and Thomas was faintly annoying and felt like it was there to pad out the book and/or add drama. I was not invested in it the way I should have been because it came on too suddenly and then ended too suddenly as well. It was a minor speedbump in the course of the book, and it shouldn't have felt that way.

 

I loved the scene with Thomas' aunt, and the further hints of voodoo and the different forms of magic throughout the book. This is a world I want to explore further, and I kind of regret that the duology is done. I'm hoping to see more of this world at some point.

 

The ending was pretty well done. I wasn't ecstatic about it, precisely, but I'm not quite sure what I was expecting. This whole situation was a bit messy and couldn't really be cleaned up too nicely, I don't think, so it fit, although it was not quite what I was hoping. It was bittersweet, and that is appropriate. It did tie up loose ends and give closure to the main plotline, but I am honestly hoping to see further adventures of ghost hunting at some point down the line. There aren't enough ghost hunting books in the world.