Review: Great Prequel to a Series
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 12, 2012
"The Abandoned" by Amanda Stevens is a prequel to her "The Graveyard Queen Series" of books, featuring Ree Hutchins, a nursing student and volunteer at an asylum, and Hayden Priest, amateur-wannabe-professional ghost hunter. In this prequel we are introduced to a cadre of characters, and are treated to the back-story to the subsequent series.Something awful happened a long, long time ago, resulting in a family secret shared between a couple descendents, either of whom could destroy the other by revealing the secret, but apparently not without suffering irreparable personal harm. The secret somehow involves the death of an elderly, long-term resident at the asylum, which brings the two living keepers of the secret into a head-on conflict.Ree is the unfortunate witness to some serious and criminal comments made between these two "gentlemen", but also seems to be targetted by one or more ghosts who also played a role in the big secret.Hayden is out in a cemetery late at night with his camera, hoping to see a ghost and capture it on film. What he sees is the sleep-walking Ree, who is scantily clad, and who proceeds to disrobe further. Unaware that she is actually sleep-walking, Hayden nevertheless realizes something isn't quite right with the girl, and inadvertantly wakes her. Upon waking, she accuses Hayden of trying to disrobe her, etc, etc, but eventually she calms down and the two wind up working as a team to get to the bottom of the long-held secret. (I wouldn't be surprised if they end up "in love".)The plot in this prequel is fairly comprehensive, for being a short story, and sets up the subsequent series apparently quite well. I recommend reading this prequel before jumping in to the "Graveyard Queen" series itself. It all promises to be an intriguing, twisted tale, with a lot more "secrets" yet to be revealed. I'm personally looking forward to following this tale through to its final denouement.