Review: Fun with a Supernatural Twist
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 15, 2013
Veiled Mist by Eleanor Beaty is an almost perfect YA read that adults can enjoy too. Hanna is a spoiled rotten, fifteen-year-old socialite whose biggest concern is how good she looks and keeping her little clique together.  She has it all: looks, money, and a dead Princess for a mother. She is on top of her little world and nothing can move her - she thinks.Enter Mummy Man; the tormentor of Hanna's dreams who she is convinced is just a fantasy. Till one morning after dreaming about him she awakens to find her prize possession, a princess doll, with both of its arms having fallen off. Hanna is devastated and tries her best to find out who has ruined her doll, but no one in the house was in her room after she went and so Hanna has to leave the destroyed doll as a mystery - until a new doll store opens on the island.Enter Ornella. Ornella is everything Hanna has been taught to fear. She is strange, a gypsy and she tells Hanna she has two days less until sixteenth birthday than Hanna knows. However, Hanna is convinced she is correct - after all, it is her birthday she's been celebrating all her life. What can a weird gypsy woman know about it, or her destiny? Why should she believe that she has some great destiny that if she doesn't accept by her birthday, she will die exactly one year later? But for some reason, even though she doesn't believe anything else she believes this. So Hanna makes up her mind she is going to refuse her destiny, returns home and begins to try to write her eulogy.So Ornella sets out to reveal Hanna to herself. Bit-by-bit Ornella starts to reveal Hanna to herself. Some of the changes are hard for Hanna to adjust to, sometimes facing the type of person, she is really hard, but it is never done judgmentally on her part. Instead, as Hanna starts to act better and the people around her start to react, she begins to see exactly how self-centered and haughty she really was. Oh, and of course, finally catching the attention of the boy of her dreams helps Hanna too. She'd give anything to have him quit looking at her as if she was one-step removed from pond scum. Can she make him see the good in her?I really enjoyed Veiled Mist. From the first pages, it caught my attention and kept it. When I had to put it down the first night to go to sleep, I was disappointed because I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. The tension is well developed and the characters are interesting and perfect for the roles they play in the story. The magical element is just right, not too heavy-handed, and there are great moments of comic relief. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone from middle grades on up to adults. It is a neat fantasy, taking place in the modern world that almost anyone can enjoy.I received a free copy of this book from Novel Publicity in return for my open and honest review.