perfect narration

This was an absorbing tale of ghosts and gruesome murder. A perfect audiobook and definitely recommended.

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Engaging But A Slow Burner

As with other Michael McDowell works this is very much a character driven story. The plot seems to take second place to character development and the interpersonal relationships that occur throughout the book. The book is so well written and filled with intricate historical details that it easily held this listener's attention. However, if you prefer plot driven stories and fast paced yarns McDowell won't be for you. The sample is a very good representation of the pace of the book. The narrator was excellent throughout and helped transport me to a time and society that no longer exists.

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Meandering, and Ultimately Disappointing

I was so excited about the premise of this book, but honestly it was incredibly overwritten. It was like reading a book from back in the days where authors were paid by the word. There was so much pointless information that the actual plot got lost, a lot. Honestly, I had to check the description of the book numerous times just to remind myself what it was about because so much of the content is just so irrelevant to the actual plot.

The premise was so promising, with so much potential but the execution was beyond disappointing. I didn't discern where one author stopped and the other began, but as I'm not familiar with the work of the original author, I can't help but wonder if a potentially good story was ultimately ruined.

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So much boredom for this ending?!

About the narration: it was okay. To me, the accent sounded authentic enough, though a bit caricaturish with some of the characters, which was a pity. The mother and granny were awful enough, but the narrator slightly accentuated that which just made them a bit comical. Also with some of the servants, I had the same problem: the over-acted accent and tone of voice made them sound comical in a way I didn't like.

About the story:
I have never read anything from either writer. So, I found it interesting when other reviewers, who knew both writers, said things like "you can tell exactly where Tabitha King took over", and how overly descriptive her writing was as opposed to his, which was... well, in my opinion, painfully over-descriptive already. At the very beginning of the book I already constantly had the feeling that much of the writing was just to fill as many pages as possible. Descriptions can be lovely in a literary way but here much of it was simply irrelevant and just failed to appeal to my literary sensibilities. I stuck it out though because I so wanted to finish the first book I ever tried from the wife of Stephen King, who is among my favorite writers.
I could not tell where she took over at all, which is no surprise, given the fact that I really don't know the writers. I just struggled with the feeling that from the point the little girl leaves home with her insufferable mother and horror of a brother, none of the story has anything to do with anything. What I mean is that the book goes on and on and it's just a story of a weird and annoying little girl whose dad had been murdered, growing up with an awful mother, with some mystery thrown in, but even the mystery is kind of random. One review mentioned the masterful building up of suspense by Michael McDowell which I did not see. What I saw was just random stuff that's kind of spooky but has nothing to do with what I thought the premise was. And if you stick it out to the end, this gets confirmed. I myself was so disappointed, that I gave up listening half-way through the last chapter! I just could not listen for another half hour because it was pointless. I felt cheated out of so many wasted hours while I could have been listening to something new end exciting, or Stephen King's masterful Lisey's Story for the fourth time!
Dozing half the time and missing bits and then rewinding to make sure I was not missing important hidden clues, to then find that there hardly could have been any important hidden clues because here, in the last chapter, all my worse suspicions were confirmed.
I have no idea what all that was about the dead baby in the footlocker. At least I think there was a dead baby in the footlocker, I was so losing concentration by this point that I was probably missing half of what was happening and didn't care to rewind anymore. I didn't follow what the whole footlocker scene was about at all. The ransom money was mentioned, did she find it and where, I am clueless! I was neither surprised, nor very intrigued by the way in which Callie found out about who was behind the murder of her dad. Instead of the chapters and chapters of what could make a decent coming-of-age film with no-one getting murdered and none of the entirely pointless supernatural elements, there might have been much more suspense and development of Callie finding out about her dad's murder. Because that, very disappointingly, just got thrown at the reader in a quick chapter!
Not to mention the epilogue, in the middle of which I stopped listening. I really could not care less who financed her studies and had no interest in her career and sexual preferences summed up in a short afterthought. I have no idea what the significance of how her dad's killers died had been, or whether there was any mention of that after I stopped listening. I remember how intriguing that sounded before I bought this audiobook but now I don't care!
Here is why, with SPOILER ALERT: I will not give away everything. But don't read on if you want to be surprised, though I suggest that rather than a surprise, it will be a massive disappointment when you get to the end!
To be duped into thinking through hundreds of pages of entirely irrelevant events for something mysterious going on, just to see in the very last chapter the mystery getting wiped out and explained away with psychology and natural optical phenomena, was more than an anticlimax! As literary experiences go, this was a crushing one. I am even considering returning this book for a refund of the credit I bought it with. Having very nearly finished it I am not sure I qualify but I might try anyway,

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