Unwept by Tracy & Laura Hickman

THickman-UnweptThe essence of the roaring twenties come to life in Unwept by Tracy and Laura Hickman. With a sense of the paranormal, we are introduced to a realm of paranoia and confusion. All of this creates a book which is in itself somewhat confused.

Gamin, Maine, is a remote seaside town where everyone seems to know Ellis Harkington better than she knows herself—but she doesn’t remember any of them.

Unknown events have robbed Ellis of her memory. Concerned individuals, who claim to be friends and loved ones, insist that she simply needs to recuperate, and that her memories may return in time. But, for her own sake—so they claim—they refuse to divulge what has brought her to this state.

Ellis finds herself adrift in a town of ominous mysteries, cryptic hints, and disturbingly familiar strangers. The Nightbirds, a clique of fashionable young men and women, claim her as one of their own, but who can she truly trust? And what of the phantom suitor who visits her in her dreams? Is he a memory, a figment of her imagination, or a living nightmare beyond rational explanation?
Only her lost past holds the answers she seeks—if she can uncover its secrets before she falls prey to an unearthly killer.

There are some books which I don’t have much to say about and Unwept  falls into that category. The characters felt like filler for the plot and the plot doesn’t move until the last minute. This is only to be cut short by an ending that simply leaves us with ‘end of part 1’. This frustrated me to say the least. I came away with the feeling that this book is not one in a trilogy but simply a novella which should’ve waited to be combined with the rest of the story.

It isn’t that the story is bad, merely that it is a lot of wait for very little reward. Unwept feels like an old movie with a slow beginning to establish the fear. What it does not have in common with those old movies is the beautiful resolution. I ended up thinking ‘seriously, this is it?’ Even if book 2 was already released,  the lack of a clear narrative would likely frustrate most readers. I can’t recommend Unwept because of how unsatisfying it is.  I could only imagine reading this as the full trilogy,  which is currently not published.

About Natassia 143 Articles
I am a performer by trade and have been an avid reader for as long as I can remember. My bookshelves are full of many genres but I have a love of fantasy, SciFi and steampunk which have only spurred my performing dreams to help one of these fabulous worlds come to life. I tend to read books with a lot of edge and grit; if it's got zombies, space battles or fantastical steam inventions, I'm in. When I'm not reading or off making my own adventures, I can be caught watching movies of every era, gaming, and being scandalously political like any good steampunk heroine.