Kimberly Loth is one of my favorite go-to authors because I know that whatever she writes, I will be thoroughly entertained! Even if the genre isn’t my usual fare, her writing is amazing, her world-building is great, and her characters really come alive.
Callie is a true 16 year old California girl, loving the life of surfing and hanging out at the beach. However, her plans for the summer are changed when her Mother sends her to help out her Uncle Luke in his Circus on an island in Louisiana. When Callie arrives, she finds that this circus is unlike any other she has ever encountered.
She soon begins to wonder about her sanity when she sees dilapidated tents come to life during the new moon and people seem to die every time the circus is open to guests. Then, one boy she meets tries to kill her and she is told that he is a ghost. Things get even stranger when Callie visits a fortune teller and learns that she can never leave the island because of the cards that are drawn.
This series was very unique with vampires, ghosts, zombies, voodoo, and all the “normal” circus creepiness like clowns and side shows. Callie is a typical teenager and it takes her a long time to begin to accept the fact that some of the supernatural things she is encountering are actually real. I loved the details in the writing in the descriptions of the area and the people. I felt like I was seeing them through Callie’s eyes.
Add in a little love interest in the devastatingly handsome (but also creepy) Samuel, who appears to be an 18 year old boy, but might be much, much more.
“All the people I love end up dead.” This seems to be the mantra for Callie as her story continues to unfold in this wonderful series! What’s not to love when you have a Circus where someone is killed every month, zombies inhabit the swamps along with the alligators and snakes, and ghosts come back to life every time the Circus opens?
Without giving away too much of the plot, Ms. Loth has managed once again to rip out her reader’s hearts and throw them against the wall in this series. Be prepared to have a couple of good cries as you read this one!
Kimberly Loth has created a unique world and cast of characters and when some of these characters die (or do they?), the reader feels like they have lost a friend. The worst part about reading the last in a series is not being able to interact with the characters anymore.
This series is geared at the YA crowd, but don’t let that fool you. There is plenty of magic, voodoo, zombies, witches, villains, romance and tension in this series. The ending was perfect and I loved the twist at the end that opens up the possibilities of more books set in this world.
The narrator, Sarah Puckett, does a great job and adds a lot to an already wonderful series I was given the chance to listen to this book by the author and chose to review it.