Book review - Grave Mistakes

 

Title: Grave Mistakes

Author: Kitty Curran

Genre: mystery

Similar books: What Stays Buried by Suzanne Young

                      Brick Dust and Bones by M R F

Rating:

 

a decent start to a series

Summary (provided by publisher): Molly Dade has big problems. She’s got an important violin audition coming up, she’s been paired with her nemesis for a group project, and she’s struggling to hide a life-or-death secret from…well, from everyone. It wasn’t long ago that the Dades were just a regular Maine family living in their reportedly haunted house in the local cemetery. But then Molly’s mom and twin brother Marty were killed in a freak accident. And Molly, her older brother Timothy, and her father became the town’s newest bereaved family.
Except Mom and Marty are still very much present. No one knows why, but Mom is now a ghost and Marty is a poltergeist. Oh, and there’s also Molly’s younger sister Dyandra, who is a zombie.
Keeping all this supernatural stuff a secret from everyone is hard work, especially when the dead (undead?) members of the family still want to participate in things like the Parent Teacher Association meetings or come to the (very public, very potentially embarrassing) school concert.
When Dad’s new cemetery assistant seems to know the Dade family secret, Molly and Marty worry about the future of their family. And when Marty begins to regain his memories of the explosion that killed him and Mom, the twins realize that the situation might be even more grave than they thought. Someone might be after the Dade family—but who? And why?

My opinion: For a book that starts with a family that is half dead, this book is surprisingly silly. It doesn't take itself overly seriously. There is a mystery, sure, but the bulk of the plot is more about rivalries with school peers and the fear of being an outsider than it is about mysterious deaths. The primary plot is fairly straightforward and doesn't dig too deeply into characters. There is certainly a sense that something larger is going on in the town so there's room for this to grow into a more complex series.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley