The Haunting of Velkwood is an original manner of ghost story. It took me a little while to really get into it, because I kept trying to figure things out a little more in terms of science, spatial and temporal issues of what was happening instead of settling in for a but of a supernatural tale.

That’s not to say the book wasn’t good, it was really good, and has a lot of heart.

Talitha, who is just existing instead of living, is approached by a researcher, Jack, to come home and help them with their investigation. She, and her two childhood friends, Brett and Grace were the only survivors when their whole street seemed to have vanished from existence, becoming a gray strange expanse that won’t let anyone through, except for them.

Talitha is willing to pass through the barrier, into a ghostly subreality of her childhood neighborhood. She is willing for one reason alone, to save her little sister, Sophie, who she had to leave behind, when she, Brett, Grace, and their friend Enid, changed their lives with one moment.

Things are troubling and spooky in this reality, and the longer Talitha stays there, the more a part of it she becomes. But is she living her life, or literally holding onto the past?

If Talitha and her friends are going to survive, they’ll have to face the literal ghosts of their past, and each will be forced to make a decision about what they want from their lives, and where their lives are meant to take them.

A spooky story, it doesn’t trot out a lot of scares, instead relying on a creepy atmosphere which Kiste is able to create incredibly well. There’s a lot of heart, and a lot of pain in this book, as we look at the events that led to the night that everything changed, and the price one pays because of it.

I quite enjoyed this one, and Talitha is a well-thought out and layered character who finds herself drawn in to different directions, and whose to say which one is right or wrong, and that makes the story all the more poignant.

I quite enjoyed this one, and may have to hunt down other books by Kiste. I like the way she brings her characters to life, and I like how she brought Talitha’s neighborhood to spectral life, creepy, and yet, it was home for these characters.

A solid and enjoyable read.