Book Review- Ghost of a Chance by Rhiannon Lassiter

Title: Ghost of a Chance

 Author:  Rhiannon Lassiter

Series:  N/A

Published:  6 January 2011 by OUP Oxford

Length:272 pages

Warnings: ghosts, murders, references to witches and torture,

Other info: Rhiannon Lassiter has also written things like Bad Blood, Hex and other things for children, young adults and adults.

Summary : Eavesdroppers never heard good of themselves. But she'd never expected to hear that she was dead. How did Eva die? The rumours say she killed herself, but Eva knows different. Victim and detective in her own murder, she must solve the mystery. If she doesn't, more will die ...

Review: Eva Chance lives with her grandfather in a mansion. He hosts a dinner party, but for some reason everyone seems to ignore Eva. Then a couple of teenagers discover a torture chamber with the corpse of a witch in it. As you do. Eva also finds this witch, who tells Eva that she died but nobody cared. Eva also makes friends with Maggie, the ghost of a servant girl, Kyle one of the discoverers of the witch and Kyra, his twin sister that gets more likable as we get to know her. The twins start to investigate Eva's disappearence, as do Eva and Maggie, but as  two seperate groups, not as a four. Then other members of the Chance family, such as the grandfather and the aunts, start getting attacked too, resulting in either death or hospitalisation. Kyle, Kyra, Maggie and Eva all investigate these together, and the book ends with the killer/attacker being reveale and closure for all. Bad summary I know, but I'm no good at summarising mysteries...

The concept was very good. A ghost solving her own murder mystery, helped by other ghosts a the living.

I liked the lot of description in it. It gave a real sense of what was happening, which is good since parts of the book is fairly complicated.

It was fairly easy to connect with Eva, to understand her thoughts and reasoning. Kyra and Kyle, I didn't like at first, but they seemed to grow on me as we learnt more about them and whats going on. Maggie was an interesting character with an odd personality.

Ghost of a Chance was quite hard to follow, because there's a lot going on. The murder mystery part was good, complicated with lots of plot twists and red herrings, which meant the revelation of the murderer was a suprise. The storyline following the witch, with the possession and the ghosts was really hard to follow, possibly because remembering everything was hard. The cast was large enough without all the ghosts coming into it. I had trouble remembering who was who, why Eva would be upset when they got attacked,  and so on, and I had to keep going back to when characters were introduced to fully understand it all.

Overall:  Strength 3 tea to a mix of murder mystery and paranormal elements that's done very well but can at times be hard to follow.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website |

Thanksies to Comacalm who sent me this book!