by Blake Crouch

I admit I wanted to read this because I enjoyed The Pines so much.

Abandon is a ghost town with a mystery; where did everybody go? On Christmas Day 1893, the whole population of the town just disappeared without trace. Scroll ahead to modern day, and a group that includes two paranormal investigators decide to visit the town and see what they can find out. Among them is Abigail, who is a journalist following the investigation.

The beginning where they have to go through some difficult conditions to climb a high, snowy mountain to get to the old mining town was pretty interesting, but the story almost lost me with the first flashback about the inhabitants of the town in 1893. I don't know, it just seemed to move slowly. Then suddenly things start happening and I found myself breathless with fear for the characters.

About a quarter of the way through, things happen that change the game. I was expecting a ghost story, but got something entirely different. The chapters continue to flip between 1893 and 2009-10 with some pretty unpleasant things happening in both. Most of the story I found slow going and not at all what I had expected. I have to admit that I was disappointed that there wasn't the supernatural element that having paranormal investigators involved made me assume.

The writing itself is very good, as I've seen with Crouch before, but the movement of the story itself was just too slow and depressing.

Van Dyken is at her best when introducing characters at their worst. Abandon is the best of the worst moments in the scope of Ty Cuban's life. He's hit rock bottom and doesn't even realize it. This bad boy knows how to be the life of the party, but what happens when the good times have started to fizzle out? Enter Von Abigail. Ty is about to come face to face with his past. Will it be a match made in heaven or a heartache he lives to regret? A sexy second chance romance.

Wind rips through the crags a thousand feet above, nothing moving in this godforsaken town, and the mule skinner knows that something is wrong.

- first sentence

 

Okay, so the first thing I need to say is that I loved the Wayward Pines series. I thought I would love anything by Crouch.

When I started reading this book, I thought there was going to be a supernatural element. I kept waiting for something that was never going to come.... because of this, I didn't like the book. Maybe if I had known what to expect, I would have appreciated the book more. To be fair, the summary on Amazon does kind hint towards a ghost/haunting.

Overall, it wasn't a bad book and I did learn a lot of new words - though I probably won't have an opportunity to use them in conversation any time soon.

Examples:

mochila - a Spanish word for knapsack

shabrack - a cavalry saddlecloth used in European armies

younker - youngster

scree - a mass of small loose stones that form or cover a slope

speleothem - structure formed in a cave by the deposition of minerals from water

slumgullion - cheap or insubstantial stew

The story goes back and forth between present time and a century ago (when the entire town disappeared). There is a lot of death and killing, but the reason is NOT supernatural, it's just old-fashioned greed. There is a man who thinks God talks to him and makes a terrible choice because of it, but there are no ghosts, no haunting. Oh well.

I used to read Overboard everyday on the commuter train to Chicago and work. I just loved the adventures of pirates, The Captain, Nate, Boof, Charley, Seahawk and all the creatures they dealt with including The Green Ship, Sharks, Sea monsters, snakes, girls and other denizens of the deep. I found these two books that contained reprints of the classic comics and they brought back lots of memories. We can always use a good chuckle. Thanks to Chip Dunham for his creativity.

The mystery regarding what happened to the inhabitants of Abandon mining community a hundred years ago, is one that is yet to be solved. The mining community just suddenly disappeared on Christmas day, leaving all their worldly goods with no evidence as to what happened to them.

Two guides are hired by a history professor and his daughter, with them are a couple obsessed with paranormal photography who believe that Abandon is haunted.

Once there, the party discovers that they are not alone but it's something far worse than ghosts.

Once I got about a quarter of the way in I was totally hooked on the story and finding out what was happening in the alternate story lines, one dealing with what happened in 1893 and the other with the present day expedition.

I thought this was going to be a paranormal read but it turned out to be something very different and although I was a bit disappointed that the storyline didn't make better use of the paranormal couple it was still completely engrossing.

Another really solid read from Crouch.