Review: Great read!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 3, 2010
The Ghost Hunter" by Lori Brighton is a very interesting story with an equally interesting cast of characters. There's a girl who sees ghosts (Ashley), witches, faeries, angels, werewolves, vampires, demons, and more. And indeed, the final showdown is between a demon and an angel, which is always an epic battle the whole family will enjoy - as long as they are over the age of 17, because no kids are invited to this party. And speaking of interesting types of characters.. there was an appropriate amount of buildup to the reader finding out what Cristian really is, but once that's revealed.. it seems like sort of a let down. Like with all that build up, I was expecting more of a reaction from those not in-the-know, but it seemed to me that they moved on a little too quickly. Same with the disappearance of ghosts. Oh sure, Ashley is bothered by it when she's reminded of it, but it's not something that really bugs her, though we get the feeling it should be. And in fact, there was a time or two I forgot about the disappearance of ghosts all together.As for the characters themselves, I loved Devon. Dearest Devon is mostly a side-character (or at least not a main character), but I thought he was danged important.. especially near the end. Poor Devon gets quite the shock when a memory spell goes awry, and to top that off, he's got a demon parasite that is making him do some really jerky things. It was certainly interesting to see how each of these changes affected his character and his actions. And there was a time or two I actually liked Devon more than Cristian. Cristian seemed a little heavy-handed sometimes, he would intentionally keep things from Ashley, answers she was obviously searching for, and yet he was shocked and often amazed by how little she knew. Uh, duuhhh, maybe because you won't tell her anything! And he would switch from wanting to teach her how to protect herself, to saying how she wasn't going to make it because she didn't know anything. Maybe you should stop huffing about and do something about it then! You and your wing tattoos and sexy accent should pick up your awesome sword (I kinda want one that's able to do what his can) and do something about it!And sadly, I didn't really feel that spark between Cristian and Ashley. There was something there, obviously, but it felt like lust at best, not the supposed deep, lasting connection they kept making it seem like it was. It just didn't feel.. real enough to me, somehow. I wanted to delve further into the characters, and pick them apart, to find this connection and see if it was real, and if it worked. Which may sound awful, but I don't mean it to be harsh, in fact, it's probably a good thing that I want to reach further into each character and learn more about them.And now to the rating. "The Ghost Hunter" by Lori Brighton really was a good, quick read. There was a very interesting storyline there, I just needed more than what I was given, I needed to feel more. I had some mixed feelings about this book, so I'll have to go with a middle-of-the-road rating - a FOUR out of FIVE (4/5). The good did outweigh any issues I had with it, and this book was something I could easily sit for hours and read, as opposed to feeling the need to get up and move around between chapters. I hope to see more by this author in the future, to see how her work develops because I can see a ton of talent here.  Find this review and more at my blog [...]