I've always loved ghost stories and going to haunted places. You can read more about this as well as my review of the first book, The Haunting of Sunshine Girl, HERE. The first story had a really spooky plot. But we also learned some things about the main character, Sunshine, that are what really drive the story in this sequel. If you haven't read the first one, and still plan to, you should do two things: click on the link above to go read that review, and then come back and scroll quickly to the bottom of this post, so you don't read any spoilers for the first book, and then enter the giveaway! Now, on with my review of the second book.
We left off the last book with Sunshine finding out that the man she's met named Aidan is someone from her past. He is actually her birth father. He's come to teach her about what she is, a luiseach, someone who is able to help spirits move on, to keep them from becoming dark spirits, and if they do become dark, they can help protect humans from them. In fact that is part of what Sunshine had to do in the first book, work with a spirit that had not been moved on. In fact Aidan had kept the spirit there to give her the test. At the beginning of this book Sunshine is overwhelmed by the spirits from a car wreck that has just happened. They cause her to get so cold that it is a good thing she was at the hospital where her mother worked so that they could take her in and help her. It is at this point that Aidan steps in and introduces himself to Sunshine's mother and tells her what is going on. He proposes that in order to help Sunshine learn to deal with this type of situation she needs to go to one of the luiseach training centers located in Mexico. There's no one else there, as all of the other luiseach don't agree with Aidan, and they want Sunshine gotten rid of.
While in the compound which is located in a jungle area, Sunshine will remember things about her mother, and find that her mother is on the other side of the fight. she has had to leave her friend/protector Nolan behind. Which on the one hand is a good thing, because she has had to tell him that whenever they get close, something about him repels her. Even though the two of them definitely have an attraction to each other. But it isn't just Sunshine and her father at the training center, there is also an attractive boy about her age named Lucia, another luiseach. He is being trained by Aidan, and is on Aidan's side because of what happened to his family. During the training time it will come out that Aidan may be actually working on something else, and that all his training may not be quite as straight-forward and normal of training for a luiseach. She will miss Nolan, who will be dealing with his own findings back home, as he tries to help Sunshine in the only way he knows how, the thing he is best at, research. The ending will leave Sunshine at a crossroads of how to go on. Is what Aidan was working on something that she needs to help him with? Or is the other group, the ones that want her gone, do they really know what is best?
While this really wasn't the same ghost story as the first one, it still had some parts with ghosts that were definitely creepy as you read the details of those ghosts. The main house of the training compound did have a definite creepiness to it, especially the room with the baby bed where Sunshine had been when she was a baby. I really enjoyed learning more about the background of the luiseach, and exactly what the story was behind Sunshine's birth, and why she'd been given up for adoption. I like all the characters, even the new ones, and by like, I mean the ones you are supposed to hate or dislike, I really did! I will definitely be purchasing this title for my school library to give to those students who have read the first one, also in my library.
As I mentioned in my first review, there is a YouTube Channel that these books are based on, again you can go and check it out HERE. And, because I have really enjoyed these books, I want to give my readers a chance to win one! I also want to get the word out and share my love of the series on Goodreads. So that is something you can help me with in the Rafflecopter below. This giveaway is international as long as The Book Depository will deliver to your country.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
