Carrow Haunt

This was a fine, fluffy read. (Well, fluffy by my standards - so plenty of murder and horror, just not very deep or artistic writing.)There were some good spooky set pieces, but ultimately I found Coates undermined any true horror or creepiness by making everything thoroughly explained and understood - more like Buffy or Supernatural (though lacking the snarky humor) than [b:The Woman in Black 37034 The Woman in Black Susan Hill https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327869942s/37034.jpg 2127172], [b:Dark Matter 8350864 Dark Matter Michelle Paver https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1504563569s/8350864.jpg 13203928], or [b:Ghost Stories of an Antiquary 1556093 Ghost Stories of an Antiquary M.R. James https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1344670655s/1556093.jpg 823071]. Early on, we have ghost experts infodumping the different types of ghosts, their abilities, and what to do about them. I prefer my hauntings more mysterious and unnerving.The ending is improbable (and retroactively lowers the stakes bigtime), and the romance is pretty half-baked, but still this was a serviceable diversion. Some of the characters are memorable and fun, and there were enough twists & turns to keep it intriguing. Good airplane read!

Overall, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. More so than the three previous books I read by this author. I found that I enjoyed the isolation aspect and there being many people. In some of her other books, the house is in a town that while yes, some ways away it's still possible to get to.

In this book not likely. Also, only one or two characters are impacted or in the house during the haunting. This time there was a small group and I liked hearing from everywhere instead of just from the same person or two people. It made it more interesting.

This book was close to a 3.5 to possibly a light 4.