Title: Ghost Coach
Author: Amanda Linehan
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: January 10, 2015
Genres: Paranormal, Contemporary
Length: 15 pages
Source: I received a free copy from the author.
Rating: 3 Stars
Blurb:
Sarah hasn’t been sleeping well. Turns out, she has a ghost in her house. But this ghost has a problem.
And only Sarah can solve it.
Review:
Content Warning: brief reference to blood, a dead animal, and a ghost with a severe head injury. I will not discuss these things in my review.
Even ghosts need a little tutoring sometimes.
I adored the fact that Sarah was oblivious at first to the ghost’s attempts to scare her. She had such a logical and calm personality that the spirit of a dead person was the last thing she ever would have suspected to be the cause of the fluctuating temperatures in her bedroom. This was a nice change of page from the sorts of characters who generally populate this genre, and I found myself wishing for just a few more scenes with her in them so I could get to know her even better.
The beginning and middle of this tale did not quite match the ending due some references to blood and gore in the last few scenes. While other style could have worked for this piece, I have to say that I preferred the lightheartedness of the first two-thirds of it to the more violent – albeit still sort of humorous – tones at the end and wish that the author had stuck to one style or the other for the entire thing. Some readers will love both, of course, and that’s totally normal and okay, but in my experience these two approaches do tend to attract different audiences whose interests may not overlap here as much as the author might hope they would. Sticking to one lane would have made this a more effective and memorable story in my opinion.
There are only so many things someone can do after death to amuse themselves. It made perfect sense to me that the ghost would eventually want to interact with the living in order to get some sort of mental stimulation and socialization, as one-sided as those experiences could often be depending on who they were haunting and how that person reacted to suddenly having their covers pulled away or their television turned on in the middle of the night.
Ghost Coach was a funny, playful, and occasionally a somewhat dark take on the haunted house genre.