Tighter by Adele GriffinMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Battling depression after a back injury during track, Jamie’s mom gets her a job as an au pair for the summer on the island of Little Bly, vacation spot for the uber-wealthy. What she didn’t anticipate is that she is a near look-a-like for the former nanny, a young girl who died in an accident with her boyfriend the previous summer. Or that their spirits would be hanging around the mansion causing mischief and anguish for those left behind.
The story builds from there as Jamie battles her own depression and prescription drug dependency while trying to sort out the mystery of why the ghosts are hanging around. It moves with a slow ethereal quality to the writing with strong interactions with secondary characters and being a teenager just trying to hold it all together and break out of her depression.
And then the last couple of chapters take a turn that I did not see coming. I do not want to even hint at spoiling it, but when the twist comes, it is a shocker. The kind that made me literally suck in a huge breath. I’m glad I was alone or it would have been really embarrassing it was so loud. The kind of twist that had me flying back through the pages to make sure that, yes, all the clues were right there and why didn’t I see it?
I love it when a book can do that—take me totally by surprise. It doesn’t happen often. It wasn’t the type of book I thought it was at all. It was better.
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