Review: Ghost Heart by Ripley Patton

Posted December 17, 2014 by Lola in Fantasy, Review, Suspense / 2 Comments

LolaReview

Ghost Heart coverGhost Heart (The PSS Chronicles #3)
By Ripley Patton

Genre: Paranormal Thriller
Age category: Young Adult
Release date: October 14, 2014

Blurb:
In the aftermath of a brutal tragedy, Jason and Passion are on the run. Marcus is lost beyond reach, and The Hold is in shambles. If that weren’t enough, Olivia Black has been taken by the CAMFers to be used as Dr. Fineman’s personal lab rat in his merciless quest to uncover the mysteries of Psyche Sans Soma once and for all. But only if he can break her.

They are scattered.
They are devastated.
They are ruined.

Their only hope is Olivia’s stubborn determination to thwart her captors and unlock the secrets of her ghost hand before Dr. Fineman can. Will she finally find the strength within herself to embrace the full power of her PSS?

And will it even matter if Marcus has already betrayed her?

My Review:
I received a copy in exchange for an honest review

This review may contain minor spoilers for this and earlier books in this series.

As I really enjoyed the first two books in this series I was really excited for Ghost Heart, I went in with high expectations and the expectation that this book would be like the first two. The first two books are fast paced story driven books and this book was different. Now I am not sure if this is necessarily a bad thing, but I expected something different then I got. Ripley takes a chance with this book and stears the story in slightly different direction and with a slower pace then was the norm for the first two books.

Okay so at the end of book 2 Olivia gets captured and bad things happened. I kinda thought there would be a time skip, so we didn’t get all the details of her capture. But there is no time skip, Ghost Heart starts almost directly after Ghost Hold, okay maybe a few hours later, but not much. We get Passion’s point of view, Marcus and Olivia. I thought the multiple point of view was a nice addition, especially as the characters are separated.

I think my main problem with this book is that it felt like nothing really happened, something happened to Marcus and he has to recover, so he and Passion are just sitting around waiting. There are some things that happen, but it mostly felt like they were waiting and nothing really big happened. Then there’s Olivia, well she’s captured and bad things happen to her. It was almost painful to read her point of view sometimes. I think the author really wanted to give the readers a feel of what Olivia went through. And while I think it’s good the author gives us some idea of what happens there at the compound, I also felt like it all took a little too long and went a little too slow. I missed the fast pace of the first two books. I wanted something to happen, the story to continue, something, anything. But instead we just got a slow paced book that felt like a filler book.

Then at the end everything changed, stuff started happening. Revelations, plot twists, interesting tidbits of information. And just when it all got interesting the book ended, that was a bit of a bummer, although it does make me curious about the next book and fits with my idea that this book was a set-up for the next.

Now let’s talk about the characters. I always liked Olivia, but in this book I just felt bad for her. She’s in a bad place, completely helpless and there’s nothing she can do about it. Absolutely nothing. I was excited to get Passion her point of view and I certainly enjoyed the chapters form her point of view, although as nothing much was happening we still didn’t learn a lot about Passion. There were a few important scenes were Passion said what needed to be said and I really liked that about her. She knew life was hard and she gave Marcus a few mental kicks when he needed it. At the end of the book we’re introduced to a new character. I really liked her and what she represents and I hope we see more of her in the next book.

I was really disappointed with Marcus in this book. Something happened to him at the end of book 2 and it’s bad, he lost the last 8 months of his memories. I hated it, but what I hated most was that it doesn’t make sense. I learned a bit about memory during my study psychology and memory doesn’t work this way. You can’t lose a chunk of memories like that, either you forget all your past memories or you can’t make any new ones. He not only forgot the past 8 months, but didn’t even recognize the people he should know. I just wasn’t buying it and it frustrated me to no end. It also seemed like a convenient way to put him basically out of the picture in this book. And when he opened his mouth he was an ass, he was mean, cussing and not taking the time to listen to people or take them serious. I couldn’t stand him in this book and it felt like the Marcus we knew in the first two books was gone. He seemed like a completely different person and I didn’t like it.

Then there was the world building, it nicely builds on what we already knew and I liked the new tidbits of information that were thrown our way. Every book we learn a bit more about how PSS works and it’s interesting. The answers we get also create more questions, but that seems to be the way things work in this book. It always feels like there is more to know, but I didn’t mind too much. It was nice knowing there was still more to discover about this world and PSS.

To conclude: mainly I was disappointed by this book as it wasn’t like the previous books. It wasn’t a bad book, I just had different expectations. I liked the multiple point of views, but found the story went a bit too slow and this book felt like it suffered from middle book syndrome and was building-up towards the next book. I understand why this book was necessary, but there just wasn’t enough happening. I felt bad for Olivia in this book, liked getting to know Passion better, was happy with the arrival of a new character towards the end and was endlessly frustrated with Marcus. The world building nicely follows the pattern of the first two books with providing some new answers and posing new questions.

3-star

You can find Ghost Heart on Goodreads.

You can buy Ghost Heart here:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

Other books I reviewed by this author:
– Ripley Patton – Ghost Hand (PSS Chronicles #1) – 4 stars
– Ripley Patton – Ghost Hold (PSS Chronicles #2) – 4 stars

You can download Ghost Hand for free here:
Amazon
Kobo

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