Review of The House on Tyner

[Mikaela Morley]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The House on Tyner" by Matthew O’Connell.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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The House on Tyner by Matthew O’Connell is a cosy ghost story that follows the life of Jackson Taylor who moves to the town of Incline only to start seeing the ghost of a little girl. The story follows him trying to figure out the message she is trying to communicate to him.

My overall rating for this book is 4 stars out of 5 stars for the reasons given below.

You can always tell by the writing when the author is an observant individual. This is the impression I got when reading this book. It has a high level of description, but it is beautifully written. I could almost smell the fragrance of the cooking coming off the page and hear the sizzling of the steaks being grilled.

This book is a fantastic read and one I thoroughly enjoyed. The story continues at a consistent pace that keeps the reader engaged.

There are two areas that, for me, would have made it a five-star book. The first is a bit more character development. The characters are all similar in the way they speak and their personalities. Adding a bit of conflict with a couple of the characters in Jackson’s quest to gain understanding of what was happening in his house would have made it a bit more relatable.

The second area was the immediate acceptance that the little girl was a ghost. As the story develops, Jackson says that he did not believe in ghosts, calling himself a “complete non-believer,” and had never seen a ghost before so it seems a little implausible that his first thought the very first time he sees her was that she was a ghost. I think it would have had more impact for him to have first assumed that someone had broken in, and maybe a pepper’s ghost illusion for the disappearance scene, and develop a bit around him searching the house and looking for the source of the illusion, until he had spoken to the previous owners.

Overall, this was a great read. I would recommend to someone who enjoys a supernatural mystery.

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The House on Tyner
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