Help me congratulate Jessica on her new book! Here’s the blurb:
She bought this house to save her marriage. Unearthing
its secrets might just claim her life.
Gwen McDaniel’s life is broken. But she knows the perfect place to fix it. Cold
Harbor, Maine, an idyllic small town with views of Acadia National Park, is
where she used to vacation with her parents as a child. Here, she and Steven
can start over, renovating their cliff-side fixer-upper while patching up their
marriage. Soon, everything will be better.
Except from the moment they arrive, Gwen sees and hears things, and it’s more
than just the drafts and shadows that are part of any old house. Steven
downplays her fears, warning her not to fixate on problems as she has in the
past. But Gwen spent years as a homicide detective, and her instincts don’t
lie. Something happened here. Proof comes when she rips up the
attic’s carpet to discover a chilling message carved into the wood underneath.
As Gwen delves into the history of the house and the Cold Harbor community, she
begins to piece the fragments together. And gradually, a terrifying picture
emerges: A missing girl. A house of horrors. And a dark, decades-old nightmare
that is more haunting than Gwen ever imagined…
REVIEW:
All Gwen and Steven wanted to do was start over in a new
town and escape from all the ‘bad’ that happened in Baltimore. What was the
bad, though? I liked how this author kept dropping hints but never really
revealing what happened in Baltimore. It made me want to keep reading to find
out what happened, the how, the why, the when, where, and who all was involved.
I also liked Gwen’s internal monologue – that was spot on given the situations
she found herself in. I think Gwen was the kind of character who covered up her
grief with humor, a lot of us do, so it makes her very relatable.
Cady, the owner of a coffee shop, wanted to start a podcast
about true crime, so, of course, Gwen being a former police detective was right
there to help her, but the more they discovered, the more grisly things became.
The house in Cold Harbor didn’t give up its secrets easily.
I liked the ghost story contained within the house in Cold
Harbor. And the hints (as I mentioned before) dabbled throughout until the
twists started almost had my head turning in a 360-degree direction.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Maybe things really do go bump in the night. Maybe there
really are apparitions that get stuck earthside before they can exit.
And Adrian Rivera, the retired doctor, who lived across the
lake - I developed a soft spot for his character.
I have to say I was beginning to figure out the whodunnit in
this tale, but I wasn’t sure all the ins and outs and how it would all piece
together.
Overall, I enjoyed this read for its ghostliness and how the
whodunnits were exposed. Many, many secrets are contained within these pages.
