Title: Buried (A Goth Girl Mystery #1)
Author: Linda Joy Singleton
Genre: Dark Paranormal Mystery, Romance, YA
Publisher: Flux
Publication Date: March 28th 2012
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Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
A new, darker paranormal mystery series from award-winning author Linda Joy Singleton—Featuring popular goth girl Thorn from The Seer series
Thorn Matthews is a Finder, a person with the psychic ability to find things just by touching an object. The visions she gets from objects—events and memories—are what guide her to the things that need to be found.
When Thorn locates a mysterious locket, it leads to a shocking and grim discovery. Now she’s implicated in a crime and surrounded by people she’s just met at her new school, any one of whom could be hiding a terrible secret. To clear her name, Thorn reluctantly uses her music skills to enter a school talent competition, which she suspects is part of the killer’s cover. Could one of her new friends be a murderer?
Buried (A Goth Girl Mystery #1) features Thorn, one of the side characters in the Seer series, another series by Linda Joy Singleton. I’ve never read the Seer series, so it took some time before I got used to Thorn, but this novel can be read well enough as a stand-alone. Thorn is an intriguing character because she’s different from most of the main characters I’m used to reading about. She’s a Finder, which means that when she touches an object, she can find the owner of the object. One day this ability leads her to a heart-shaped locket hung on a shoelace, and that’s where the mystery starts. The necklace brings her to a remote area where she finds the body of a baby.
The murder mystery at the core of this book is great. I loved it from start to finish. What I didn’t enjoy that much however, were the countless subplots that sometimes did and sometimes didn’t have anything to do with the mystery. But that’s the only downside about this novel. There’s a lot going on – the over-crowded family with only scarcely present father figure, an upcoming talent show, Thorn’s new-found friendship with another local goth girl named Rune, and so on.
What I loved, was everything except the numerous subplots. Thorn isn’t your typical goth girl. In fact, if you throw away her spikes, black clothing and outrageous hair color, you find out that she’s just a regular girl who likes to define herself by being different. She is outspoken and easy-going, and surprisingly social. Her personality actually felt very real to me, and more easily to relate to than the stereotypes we usually see in YA novels. She felt like a real person, and that’s great. I also really liked Rune. Bonus points for being an awesome best friend. The mystery at the heart of this book was very intriguing as well, as were the many plot twists and turns that kept this book going and made me read it in one single sitting. Another something I enjoyed is that there’s definitely no missing parent syndrome in this book. Thorn has six brothers and sisters, and plenty of family life going on, and I thought that was awesome.
Buried is one of my favorite paranormal mystery books of the year. If you’re on a cheap budget and you have only one book to choose from, and you enjoy paranormal mysteries, go for this one. It won’t let you down. With an intriguing and unique main character, a well-developed storyline and some humorous and snarky comments that made me laugh out loud, this book ranks high on my favorites-list. This was the first book I read by Linda Joy Singleton, but it defintely won’t be my last.
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