Title: Unwept (The Nightbirds #1)
Author: Tracy Hickman & Laura Hickman
Genre: Mystery, Paranormal, Fantasy, Young Adult
Age Group: Young Adult
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Gamin, Maine, is a remote seaside town where everyone seems to know Ellis Harkington better than she knows herself—but she doesn’t remember any of them.
Unknown events have robbed Ellis of her memory. Concerned individuals, who purport to be her friends and loved ones, insist that she simply needs to recuperate, that her memories may return in time, but refuse to divulge what has brought her to this state. For her own sake, so they say.
Ellis finds herself adrift in a town of ominous mysteries, cryptic hints, and disturbingly familiar strangers. The Nightbirds, a clique of fashionable young men and women, claim her as one of their own, but who among them can she truly trust? And what of the phantom suitor who visits her in her dreams? Is he a memory, a figment of her imagination, or a living nightmare beyond rational explanation?
Only her lost past hold the answers she seeks—if she can uncover its secrets before she fall prey to an unearthly killer.
Unwept is entirely different form the books I usually read. Ellis wakes up without a memory on the train boarding to a creepy, disturbing town where she meets strangers who she’s supposed to know. The town is filled with mysteries. Time keeps zapping, things disappear and reappear on their own. People who claim to know her don’t always have her best interests at heart. Ellis has no idea if she’s the one going crazy, or if the town is harboring something more sinister than she ever imagined.
I liked the mystery. The build up is slow, and at first I wasn’t sure if it was Ellis imagination, or if everything was real. Page by page, the truth got revealed, but even then I had a feeling we didn’t know the entire story, or parts had been left out.
Ellis was an interesting character. She seemed bland at first, but the more she recalled about her old life, the more she became a real person. The secondary characters fell flat though. They had little to no personality, more like cardboard figures that only server to bring the plot forward.
The writing was great, but the book felt like it was just laying foundations for what was to come next. The ending was a bit of a let-down, because it didn’t give any real resolution to the problems or mystery.
Speak Your Mind