Read: 15 January, 2010Tess and Tobias Goodraven haven't been normal since being orphaned in a fire as children. Since then, they have sought to contact the 'Other Side.' When they heard that a notoriously haunted ghost town close to Salem was being re-opened to the public for a winter festival, they couldn't resist exploring the power of the three witches who never truly died. But what they find is far more dangerous than any hauntings they've encountered before.
The dust jacket of my edition says that Hightman is a screenwriter - and it shows. The novel is completely visual, as though no other sense mattered. There is little consideration for style and the timing of scares, which would work just fine in Hollywood but falls flat in print. Characters are one-dimensional. What little personality exists is told to the reader - their actions and speech rarely matching the image the narrator tries to impose. In the end, the twist was utterly predictable, made all the worse for Hightman's lack of trust in his readers as he repeats it, over and over again, in every conceivable way lest we should fail to catch his cleverness.
To say one positive thing about Spirit, the mechanics of the writing are all correct - making the book bearable if not enjoyable.
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