Book Review: Lost Girl by Anne Francis Scott

Title: Lost Girl

Author: Anne Francis Scott

Genre: Paranormal Mystery, Ghosts, Thriller

Age Group: Adult

Rating: 4,5 stars

Purchase: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N

Review copy provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Lost Girl – Finalist in the 2013 Readers’ Favorite contest for Paranormal Fiction.

Secrets can eat you up from the inside out, no matter what end of them you’re on . . .

When a tragic twist of fate leads renowned sculptor Allison Weathers to the small mountain town of Dawson Mills, Tennessee, she soon learns that the dead don’t always stay silent. The rambling, old Victorian farmhouse she’s purchased has a sinister history, one that ties to a muddled piece of her own past. Long-buried secrets are about to show the ugly truth . . .

Lost Girl is an extraordinary book, a paranormal mystery at its finest, with believable, relatable characters, plot twists I never saw coming, a dark, chilling terror dripping down from the pages and a relentless pace from start to end.

Allison Weathers wants what we all want at some point – to start anew. To do so, she moves away from the big city, and to the small mountain town of Dawson Mills in Tennessee. The added bonus is that the town is connected to her mother’s disappearance, and Allison wants to continue the search for her mother, no matter what the cost. She has fallen in love with the Victorian farmhouse she’s purchased, and she’s ready to start life all on her own.

Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done, especially when her new house starts to lead a life of its own. Disembodied voices out of nowhere startle Allison in the dead of night. Shadows shift in the corridors of her new home. Someone is watching her. And then there’s the little children she and her friends noticed on the first night in the new house. The longer Allison begins to think about it, the more she grows convinced those children may not even be alive anymore…

With spirits haunting her at every corner, Allison enlists the help of local reporter Toni Harper. Toni has heard gossip from the latest owner who died in his bed in the house, but hasn’t been able to get to the root of the story yet. However, she’s determined to find out. With Toni’s help, Allison discovers the house’s sinister history…and how her own past is tied to it.

There’s also a little bit of romance, in the form of Paul Bradford, a contractor who is doing renovations on Allison’s house. He’s the first one to believe it’s more than Allison’s imagination, and who convinces her she isn’t crazy, but something else is going on. Paul was a good love interest – their relationship developed slowly, and he was a good, solid guy. The kind you can trust, trust being the main thing Allison needed in a relationship.

Allison herself was a lovely character as well. Her personality was very down-to-earth, especially considering what happened to her, and she didn’t freak out easily. She was intelligent, brave, friendly and driven by a sense of curiosity and wonder I can easily relate to.

But besides the characters, I really loved the plot. These kind of novels, that hold the middle between horror and paranormal mystery, those are my absolute favorite reads. And Lost Girl is definitely one of the better reads in that category. The mystery is complicated enough that you can’t get it right away, there are ominous signs early on, and there’s suspense and dread surrounding the reader and the characters from the first page.

An impressive novel, and I’m most definitely looking forward to reading more by this author. Highly recommended to everyone who loves a good ghost story and/or paranormal mystery.