Review - Mary: The Summoning (Bloody Mary #1) by Hillary Monahan

Thanks to Disney-Hyperion and Netgalley for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  Now, I'm not one who ever played Bloody Mary.  While I do enjoy watching scary movies, and even going to supposedly haunted places, I'm not a fan of doing something like that.  I'll admit that in college I did play around with a Ouija board with my sorority sisters, but never by myself.  And I was a little uncomfortable having it in my house after awhile.  I live by myself, and have for about 18 years now, and just got to be a bit scared, more nervous than scared.  Mainly because of all the scary movies, as well as beginning to watch shows like Paranormal State.  So I did pass it on to someone else about 6 years ago.  This book was definitely a good scary story.  And I could totally see it being made into a movie.  It had all the good events and descriptions of Mary to really scare someone watching a movie like this.

The main character is really Shauna, although the whole story centers around her other 3 friends, as the four of them together play the Bloody Mary game.  Jess, really Shauna's best friend, is the one who did all this research on Mary from the town where her grandparents live. And it is her idea to play the game in the first place.  Then there is Anna, whose house they play at the first two times.  And Kitty, who is really best friends with Anna, and also used to date Bronx, who is best friends with Jess's boyfriend.  The first time is really creepy, the kind of see Bloody Mary in the mirror.  But when Kitty gets really scared and tries to let go of Shauna's hand, the stop the game.  As you probably know, to get Bloody Mary there, you have to say her name three times in front of a mirror in a room lit only by a candle.  Or one person does at least, and in this case it is Jess.  And she also gets rid of Bloody Mary with the words "I believe in you Mary Worth."  But it has to be her, at least according to all the information Jess has found on the ritual.

The 2nd time they do it because they want to actually see more than the shadow and tips of fingers.  And they get it.  They see all of her.  Now Jess knows you must put the salt in front of the mirror to keep Mary there, as well as they must not let go of each others' hands during the ritual.  But this second time, Jess has put the salt in a line, but left a little room between it and the mirror.  And Bloody Mary uses this space to start to crawl out of the mirror, in what I pictured as the girl crawling out of the tv in the movie The Ring.  She seems to be able to keep coming out, even as Jess tries to yell the words that should send her away.  Only Shauna grabbing salt and throwing it at both Mary and the mirror is able to get her back in.  The only problem?  Bloody Mary scratched Shauna, and has the smell of her blood.  And now, Shauna is haunted.  Any shiny surface can bring her out.  Now the girls must figure out how to end the haunting for their friend Shauna.  And as each thing happens, it seems that Jess knows more than she is letting on.  Making their friendship more and more strained, only keeping them together to try to save Shauna.  They will research back in the town where Mary supposedly lived when she was alive, and also talk to the last person haunted by Mary.  And Shauna's friends will be in danger as well.  Not only does Bloody Mary want to injure and hurt Shauna physically, she wants to take away her friends, and anything that makes her happy.

I just have to say I loved Mary's back story in this.  I know I'm an outsider, but I caught on to Jess having some reason for doing all this pretty quickly, she was just very suspicious to me.  I know I mentioned how one scene reminded me of a movie, and that's why I say this could be an awesome horror movie.  Such vivid, scary scenes, I could picture them in my head.  Now the ending is a bit abrupt you could say, and doesn't necessarily solve the problem for all the friends.  But since this says it is #1 in a series, I think that was done for a reason.  And I liked the ending the way it was.  Once again the problem with reading e-galleys, now I have to wait sooooooo long for the 2nd one, because I read this one early!  As the 80s song says, "It hurts so good!"

Beyond the Grave by Mara Purnhagen

Beyond the Grave by Mara Purnhagen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I got to read this early as an e-galley through NetGalley from Harlequin. I'm so mad though because I forgot there was a 2.5 in the series called Haunting the Night and so I didn't read it before. And it's so stupid because it was a free e-book! Oh well, I downloaded it and will go back and read it. I still really enjoy this series, and this book was no less enjoyable.
We join back in with Charlotte and her mom is still in a coma. Charlotte is trying to do what she can in secret to communicate with the spirit world to try to help her mom. After defeating the Watcher, she is sure it has to be something spiritual causing her mom to be in a coma. It turns out the Watcher is not gone though, and there are other people out there, called Protectors, that can help against Watchers.
I love reading about paranormal investigators as I really enjoy shows such as Paranormal State, and I like going on ghost hunts. So it is neat to read about a family that does this. I enjoyed the flashback in this book as well to learning about some past ghost hunts the family had been on. Expect a review of part 2.5 after a couple more books on my list.



View all my reviews

American Ghost Hunter Movie Premiere

Yeah, yeah, I know this is supposed to be a book blog, but at one time I had thought to review movies as well, and one of the guys on this is an author, I had him sign his book while I was there, so I think it's okay to do this.





Also, those who attended the premieres are asked to be the publicity for this movie. To get out and spread the word. I know that some of my followers are paranormal lovers as I am, and so probably watch different ghost hunting type shoes. I first became award of this movie because I am, or was now that it's over, a huge fan of Paranormal State on A&E. So I followed that as well as Ryan Buell and Sergey Poberezhny on Twitter and Facebook. Chad Calek has also been on the show, and had been a ghost hunter on his own even before Paranormal State. In fact, for the past 20 years or so, Chad's family has been dealing with paranormal events. This movie is about Chad trying to figure out what is going on with his family and see if they can solve the problems. It seems as if his mother may be possessed. The movie is done documentary style, but that doesn't mean it isn't good. You get to see many pieces of evidence, convincing or not, that is up to you.





Don't go to this movie expecting Paranormal Activity. Nothing so dramatic, but this is real evidence, real emotion, a real story. And as part of the event we got to see other evidence and things that'd happened in the past. They showed us the evidence, gave us a chance to really look at it over and over to see what we could. So glad I got to do this.





My mother and I purchased VIP tickets, which meant we got to have dinner with the cast and crew before all of this took place. Unfortunately Chad was not feeling well, so while he did make an appearance and do most of his part of the premiere, he wasn't able to join us for dinner. I got to sit by some of the people that are his best friends, Justin Holstein and Joseph Ansley, at dinner. They were really nice, and we had some interesting conversation about science, physics and other universes. I wanted to post the pictures in this blog, but Blogger is acting funky again. Maybe something to do with the video in this. Don't know. I'll try to post the picture of me and Ryan Buell separate since he is an author, so he counts for a book blog.





I guess their next steps are to finish the tour, then take the film to some festivals. At that point hopefully it will get to come to the theater. And I'll be sure to do whatever voting and promoting that I can do.

The Past Midnight Series #1-2 by Mara Purnhagen

When I checked out the Nook again last week, I was unsure what book I wanted to read first. So I went to my Goodreads page to my young adult books to read area and searched through. I wasn't really getting excited about any of them until I came to one called Past Midnight by Mara Purnhagen. As someone who has gone on a few "ghost hunts" and is very interested in this, I decided this would be the book to start with. Especially in honor of going to see the premier of the American Ghost Hunter movie this summer and getting to meet the cast of Paranormal State tv show.

The main character is Charlotte Silver. Her parents are famous for a ghost hunting show they film. The difference is that her parents go out to debunk ghost stories. In fact they have their van for the show that is black with the word "Doubt" written on it. After a research trip to Charleston, something paranormal attaches itself to Charlotte and her parents have to face the fact that maybe there is some truth in it. Charlotte's mother is more open than her father. It turns out there are some parents who want to know what happened to their daughter, also named Charlotte. Up until now, the Silver family has moved constantly. Charlotte and her sister convince their parents to settle down near Charleston for Charlotte's senior year. And so for the first time Charlotte is able to make real friends, even a best friend named Avery. Avery has some secrets, and these secrets will be another mysterious thing to pull Charlotte into the paranormal world. That is the story behind the first book, Past Midnight.

The 2nd, or as it is called 1.5 book in the series, was a very short book, only like 83 pages on the Nook, and actually only available as an ebook. And in this, there is a huge rainstorm and flooding down in this area, and tons of coffins are washed out of cemetaries. Charlotte's parents of course volunteer to help with this, and now there is a mystery in the coffins that are found. There is a creepy man who is hanging around the cemetary that the Silver's are trying to help clean up, and he has a strange connection to the old man who cares for the cemetary. It was a really good book for as short as it was. I'm so glad the author went ahead and made it into an ebook. One thing that really connected with me in this, was the boy, Noah, that Charlotte likes. She finds out from Avery, that after homecoming, he said he was only interested in Charlotte as a friend. I felt the hurt she felt, knowing I've felt that way about several guys, only most of the time I never had anyone tell me that was all it was.

And the actual 2nd book is called One Hundred Candles. In this book, if you've heard of the 100 candles game, it does take place. A fellow student named Gwyn has other students come to her house to play this. Everyone tells a ghost story then lights a candle, until 100 stories have been told and all 100 candles have been lit. At that point the room is supposed to be filled with ghosts. Charlotte knows her parents would have a fit at her doing this, they disapprove of things like this and the Ouija board. But she is hanging out with a football player from school that supposedly is interested in her. And he holds her hand, and kisses her, and treats her really well. We also start out the story with the Silvers going to participate in an investigation in an old insane assylum with another really famous author. Now, while this person has a different name for the book of course, I wonder if it is supposed to be modeled after an actual author with a very similar name. I think is is Hans Holder? Something like that. When they are in the asylum, the assistant grabs Charlotte and is twisting and hurting her arm while he is possessed by something. And it is this something that Charlotte and her family must figure out to do. At the same time her parents are growing apart as her mother becomes more accepting and her father refuses to change his point of view on ghosts. The ending was very dramatic, and it left me hanging for book 3, which is supposedly out this fall? I hope!

Paranormal State by Ryan Buell

I'm so behind on blogging! I actually have 4 other books to post about AFTER this one. Oh well, I'll try to get one tomorrow, and two on Tuesday as I don't work at all on Tuesday and should be done grading for my online teaching job for the next 2 weeks by then.

So, I remember when I heard Ryan Buell was going to be writing a book. I was very excited. And the date in the computer at work kept getting moved back. Finally, this past September came, and it was released. And I, well, I was broke, and couldn't buy it right away. Then, I bought it, but because of reading for the Gateway nominee list, I wasn't quite sure when I could fit it in. But it was the first book I picked up to read after all the Gateway nominees were read. And I really have to say I enjoyed it.

I do love Paranormal State. Some people have said it is boring, and I can see their point. No, it is not all sensationalized like the Ghost Hunters show is. But, that is a reason I can't hardly watch Ghost Hunters, but love Paranormal State. When something happens on Paranormal State, you see it, and don't doubt it. There have been some really spooky episodes. This book goes through all the episodes and cases from the first season. The first thing that really stood out to me was learning about where the term "dead time" came from. Dead time is the time on the show when they go to different parts of the house/building, and try to communicate with the ghosts, or find evidence. So, you would assume, dead time, means communicating with the dead. It's usually around midnight, often around 3 am, the time which is said to be opposite of when Jesus died on the cross and the time when evil comes into the world. But, this is not where this name actually came from on the show. To Ryan and the rest of the PRS staff, it meant turning off all cell phones and other electrical equipment that could cause false readings or noises to occur and blow any chance of real evidence.

It was very interesting to hear about things that you didn't get to see on the show because of trying to fit it all into the half hour time slot they have. So many more details, or evidence to the contrary of an actual haunting.

The other entry I really enjoyed reading about was when Christopher Moon was on the show and brought the Frank's Box. This was neat to me because I have attended two separate ghost hunting classes and weekends with Christopher Moon, and he really got me interested into the scientific aspect of ghost hunting. All the stuff he talked about at the weekends, or most of it, really made sense based on the things we know about physics and the physical world. Now, this Frank's Box. I totally agree with several of the things Ryan and the other PRS members said about this in the book. First, Chris tends to immediately interpret what is heard out of the Box. Whether people agree or not, I think everyone should hear what they think, then compare. My thought on Frank's Box, it uses radio waves. And knowing, again with physics, that radio waves just keep going forever, there are waves bouncing around out there all the time, why does it mean it is a spirit, and not just what is coming through that area at the time? I have great respect for Chris Moon, don't get me wrong, this just brought up my questions about the Frank's Box. I would still definitely attend a ghost hunting weekend in Iowa with Chris Moon again.

Anyway, if you are a fan of the show, or ghost hunting in general, this is a very interesting book in my opinion. I do love that Ryan Buell is a fan of many of my favorite things as well, Buffy the Vampire Slayer being one of them, his dog is named Xander, after one of the BTVS characters. I do not enjoy always reading Buell's very liberal political views on Twitter. But hey, that's his opinion, and I have mine, and differences in political opinions to me, is not a good reason to not like or be friends with someone, so, I just read past those for his ghost related posts. Now I'm just waiting for the show to start up again. Hoping this season isn't already over, that there will be more episodes coming up in the next year.