Title: Messages from the Dead
Author: Sandy DeLuca
Genre: Horror, Supernatural Horror, Ghosts
Age Group: Adult
Rating: 2 stars
Purchase: Goodreads
Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Donna had never been like other girls.
She was raised by her enigmatic grandmother, who held séances in her parlor, mystifying strangers who came to their home on smoky summer nights seeking messages from deceased loved ones.
Year later, she’s settled into a normal life with her husband Joe, and attending art school at Castell Community College in the evenings with her best friend Andrea. But Castell is much more than a school.
Once home to a children’s hospital, the ghosts of the restless dead still roam the darkened hallways, and now they want something from Donna…and they’ll stop at nothing to get it…
Donna’s grandma was way into spirits. She claimed to be a medium and held séances in her parlor, all while Donna watched and learned more about the spirit life. However, Donna tries to stay as far away from the dead as possible. When she grows up, she gets married, and does everything to have a normal life. Things start to go wrong when she starts attending art school at Castell Community College. Castell isn’t a regular school. It was once a children’s hospital, and nowadays the hallways are still crowded with those dead children’s souls…
I’m usually a big fan of ghosts. I love ghost stories, in all shapes and forms. However, Messages from the Dead was a giant dissapointment for me. There’s no suspense build up. The book starts out with showing us the ghosts almost right away, and we learn early on Donna’s community college was once a children’s hospital, still haunted by the dead. There was no giant mystery to solve. A lot of things that should’ve had a purpose, didn’t. So many things were completely radom, which was terribly annoying. The story also felt rushed, like the author had wanted to finish it as quickly as possible.
A lot of people seem to like the novella, but for me it didn’t have a lot of qualities. The first person narrative worked somewhat well, but didn’t entirely convince me. There wasn’t enough tension. The story was predictable, and at times, boring. The ghosts weren’t scary at all. I felt like the character, Donna, wasn’t really developed, too many things were left unsolved, and in general, this book just didn’t work for me.
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