Haunting the Deep

Haunting the Deep by Adriana Mather   352 pages

I was so excited when I saw Haunted the Deep in the fiction section of Blogging for Books. I love stories about the sea, and especially,stories about the Titanic. I’ve seen just about every special was has aired regarding all aspects of the luxury liner.

In this story, Samantha (Sam) Mather lives with her father in Salem, Massachusetts. It’s time for the school’s Spring Fling. The theme this year is the Titanic. Chosen not by the students or most of the faculty, Mr. Wardell, an AP history teacher, chooses it because the rest of the faculty can build lesson plans around it, thereby giving students an immersive experience. It seems, to me, odd that a theme would be chose that ends in tragedy rather than something light hearted.

A mysterious box containing a green velvet dress arrives at Sam’s home. When Sam tries it on, she is immediately transported to the ship’s desk. Sure a curse has been put upon her, Sam turns to a goth clique called the Descendants, all direct descendants of witches that hanged in Salem in the 1600s.

While not too deep, the book is confusing in that there the reader must have read author Mather’s first book, How to Hang a Witch, especially when a Revolutionary War-era ghost from the first book keeps popping up. The reader also needed to know the relationship between Sam and Jan, his mother and her father, Vivian the stepmother and others---but those are fond in the first book.

The story lacked tension. While it is labeled horror, there wasn’t much to be scared of. I was also disappointed that there was far less of the Titanic than I had anticipated. For these reasons Haunting the Deep gets 2 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Fifth Petal

The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry      488 pages

Salem, Massachusetts, police chief John Rafferty has his hands full as bestselling author Brunonia Barry’s novel opens. It’s Halloween in the town known for its witch trials back in the late 1680s. Lot of weird things, and people, are out and about, but the evening is going rather smoothly. It was fun to read about how the town went all out to bring tourists into the town.

Then the night does a complete one-eighty. A teenage boy is found dead at witches’ hanging site. A mentally unstable Rose Whelan, is the prime suspect. 

Rose, once a noted Salem witch-trial historian and scholar, has a history with the town, the witches, and murder. Twenty-five years ago, she was involved with what became known as “The Goddess Murders,” all descendants of some of those accused where three young women were viciously murdered and thrown into a mass grave on another Halloween. The only survivors were Rose and one of the young women’s’ daughter, five-year-old Callie.

Callie did not come out of the event unscathed. Hiding in the bushes where Rose pushed her, Callie clung to a rose rosary, one that Rose shoved into her hands, so hard that the imprint of the rose burned itself into her little palm. Twenty-five years later that scar and still there and sometimes hurts.

After the murders, Callie was told that Rose was also dead and she was sent to a convent. Upon learning that Rose is indeed alive, Callie returns to Salem.

Many believe that Rose is guilt of the teenage boy’s death, and of “The Goddess Murders.” But proving it is another story. Chief Rafferty reopens the cold case and tries to solve those murders and well as the current one.

I won’t lie, The Fifth Petal is a slow read. The story is filled with the history of the Salem Witch Trials. It’s fascinating, but not all of it is relative to the story. In the end, I’m not sure that the teenage boy’s murder was ever solved.  For these reasons, The Fifth Petal receives 4 stars out of 5 in Julie’s world.