Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-MoorePublisher: Corgi (2011)
Format: Paperback | 404 pages
Genre(s): Young Adult, Urban Fantasy
After the "Morganville Vampires" marathon I was longing for something I could read and be done with. Texas Gothic, a stand alone novel about a family of witches was a good choice. It has a definite end and it's enjoyable.Description (GR): "Amy Goodnight knows that the world isn't as simple as it seems—she grew up surrounded by household spells and benevolent ghosts. But she also understands that "normal" doesn't mix with magic, and she's worked hard to build a wall between the two worlds. Not only to protect any hope of ever having a normal life.
Ranch-sitting for her aunt in Texas should be exactly that. Good old ordinary, uneventful hard work. Only, Amy and her sister, Phin, aren't alone. There's someone in the house with them—and it's not the living, breathing, amazingly hot cowboy from the ranch next door.
It's a ghost, and it's more powerful than the Goodnights and all their protective spells combined. It wants something from Amy, and none of her carefully built defenses can hold it back.
This is the summer when the wall between Amy's worlds is going to come crashing down."
I liked the book, overall, but it wasn't an outstanding read. Amy is the typical 'black sheep' of the family because while all the others are witches and psychics she is "normal" and is somewhat embarrassed when her family starts acting... witchy. Typically Amy only wants to lead a normal, non-magical life.
But when her aunt asks her and her sister Phin to take care of her ranch, Amy will find herself involved in paranormal events that will follow her... whether she wants to or not.
The mystery with the ghost was pretty typical, nothing special. I did like the way the author was developing things gradually, but then she rushed everything in the last chapters and that made the ending kind of anticlimatic and nonsensical. Amy was all bent on being a sleuth but she ended up not doing that much investigation.
I liked the chemistry between Amy and Ben, it was really good and it seemed it was also going to be a gradual sort of relationship, until it... wasn't. But hey, at least it wasn't insta-love.
I got the feeling the author was taking her time developing her story and her characters but then it was like she just got tired of writing and decided on an abrupt end, which was kind of bad. So this book could have been really entertaining, but it was just mildly interesting.
Overall, Texas Gothic was a good read. I liked the characters (Phin was my favorite, she was great), the mystery and the whole history around it was cool, and the world and story building were great at first. I really liked the fact that it involved anthropology and digs and it also mentioned how people see digging of old cemeteries. But the ending was disappointing. A recommended read for lovers of paranormal mysteries.
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