Review: 3.5 Stars -- Mother of all Cliffhangers
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 17, 2013
Ghost Hold picks up a few weeks after Ghost Hand ended.  Olivia has left her entire life behind in search of some names on a list with Marcus, Passion and the PSS kids.  She is going to go undercover into a private school with Passion in hopes of recruiting a girl from the list into their group.  Sounds like a simple enough plan but it turns out that it might not be that easy as Samantha James is the daughter of the leader of a cult.  Not just any cult either, one that worships PSS.I enjoyed the fast paced story line that followed.  While a few of my questions were answered (not a lot of them but a few) there were so many more posed.  Now not only are there CAMFers that hunt PSS kids there is a semi-religious group called The Hold also looking for kids with PSS to join their ranks.  At times there was so much going on I got a little muddled.  I did however love the expansion of Passion and Jason’s characters.  Passion who was such a mystery at the beginning of the book was shed in a completely different light and I liked her transition in the story.  It was great to see Passion and Olivia become friends and find some common ground.  Jason really grew up a little in this book and instead of just being a gun toting conspiracy theorist he really started to grow on me as someone who sees what is going on and is always watching out for the people he cares about.I had a few small issues with the book.  One is all the coincidences.  I didn’t completely buy into them.  I can’t remember the exact number but I think that there were like four or five things that just happened to happen and to be a coincidence.  The other was I was foggy on a few details/names from the previous book and most authors I will complain over explain things to jog your memory.  I think this is the only book I will say the opposite.  Had I read Ghost Hand right before this that wouldn’t have been a problem but I read it six months ago so I forgot a few names and while Ripley did get to who they were in the story it seemed they had been mentioned a few times before she jogged my memory.  The last thing was I really wanted Olivia to pull stuff out of people.  That was the most interesting part of the first book to me.  I loved how the things Olivia took out of people changed them, possibly made them better and I’m fascinated by it.  But she was afraid of herself and her gift in this book.  I really wish I could have read more about that aspect of the story.A few of the brighter points from this book:  I don’t know what to think about Marcus I flip back and forth between he is a good guy trying to protect everyone in his group to he has something bigger he is hiding and maybe he is the worst villain of all.  The mystery surrounding both Marcus’s past and Olivia’s parents added a new layer to storyline.  The last five chapters were incredibly intense and the cliffhanger at the end was unbelievably jagged, it cut me.I enjoyed the first book in the series a little more but overall the addition to the storyline kept me engaged and I will definitely be interested to see what happens in the final book of the series.