About the Book:
The murder of Millroad Catholic Academy's resident genius, Aaron Nguyen, shuts down student life at the boarding school in rural North Carolina...for about a week. With the resilience of youth, the student body bounces back, and the memory of murder is nothing but a streamer of caution tape fluttering in the breeze. Unfortunately for them, Aaron's spirit has some resilience as well. Despite the priest's attempted exorcism, Aaron's ghost is soon breathing chills down the students' necks and hurling bunsen burners at nuns.
Georgia Collins doesn't give a shit about ghosts. All she wants is a story to prove her underground school news blog is more than a gossip column, closure on her one-sided relationship with her best friend Hiroki, and a vanilla latte. She wasn't expecting Aaron Nguyen's death to be anything more than a cold spot in the science hall, but since Hiroki has the curse of Spectral Sight, he is the only person who can see and speak to Aaron.
As the ghost’s demands for attention become increasingly violent, Hiroki enlists Georgia to help him investigate the crime, claiming that Aaron isn’t likely to move on until his killers are caught. Still hoping for spontaneous romantic combustion, she agrees to help bring Aaron's murderers to justice and set the vengeful spirit free...but it's not quite the close encounter she's hoping for.
Lauren is a fantasy writer, voice actress, and the co-creator of 2012 Parsec Finalist, Pendragon Variety Podcast for aspiring writers of genre fiction, where she is known as "Scribe."
Her voice acting can be heard on Audible.com as well as fiction podcasts such as EscapePod, The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, and The Drabblecast B-Sides.
Though she spent three years living in Tokyo, she currently resides in a renovated tobacco shed in rural North Carolina, where she is pleased to have running water, wifi, and all her teeth.
Twitter - @Marksmaster
Blog - “Ink-Stained Scribe” - http://lscribeharris.blogspot.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/laurenbranchharris
Podcast - Pendragon Variety - A Genre Writing Podcast - www.pendragonvariety.com
The Review:
At 107 pages, I have to say I didn't have high hopes for Lauren Harris to be able to draw me into the characters and their journeys. I expected a rushed or weak story. But then again, I'm not big on short stories. They frustrate me, constantly leaving me wanting more with no hopes of getting it.
Needless to say, I was pretty happy to discover this is a series. From the first chapter--nay, from the clever chapter titles (Ex: What's a Little Murder Between Friends?), Georgia's voice captures you. She's snarky without going overboard, edgy without being the typical rebellious teenager, and has baggage without being emo. And she's very much so reluctant to embark on this adventure of solving a murder with the best friend/boy she pines over, Hiroki.
