The Dead And Buried

Jade and her family just moved into a large house near a big city. This had been Jade's dream for a long time, but was always told it would be much too expensive. She decides not ask why it's suddenly possible and is so excited even though she's moving to a new school for her senior year. She looks forward to a fresh start, but the reality is less than she expected. The other students frequently look at her and whisper to each other or suddenly stop talking when she walks into a room. Jade figures it's because she's new and chooses to ignore it. She also meets a boy with striking pale blue eyes named Donovan and makes friends with an intense yet accepting overachiever named Alexa. Then weird occurences happen in her house: her stuff is show more moved by something unseen, chills, weird sounds, and her brother claims to see a glimmering girl in his room. Jade finally accepts that her house is haunted and needs to find out who and why before the ghost harms her family.

The Dead and Buried is a delightful old fashioned ghost story with a modern twist. This horror trope has been seen countless times. An unsuspecting family movies into a haunted house and gets terrorized by the ghost. The fairly typical haunted house contains possessions, eerie happenings, poltergeist-like events, and drastic temperature changes. It gave just the right threatening atmosphere. The modern twist comes in with the ghost. One might expect a dead person in need of help to solve their issues in the living world, but we get a homicidal mean girl named Kayla who will do anything to get her way. We learn more about her and her backstory over the course of the book as her diary entries (using numbers instead of people's names) are interspersed between the chapters, allowing us to slowly put the pieces of the mystery together. Although her mean girl status is cemented from page one, I was a little surprised that she would go so far as to threaten the life of Jade's adorable little brother Colby to get what she wants. This aspect gave an urgency to solve the mystery and an aura of fear to Jade as she frantically worked to get Kayla to leave her family alone.

Kim Harrington's writing is awesome as usual and she creates some engaging and realistic characters that I grew to love (or hate) over the course of the book. Jade proved to be very relatable and fun. She misses her mother who died years ago and feels uncomfortable and an outsider in her own family. Her love and knowledge of gemstones is a nice touch and also turns out to be a connection to her mother. I enjoyed the parallels of different aspects to her story and the Daphne Du Maurier novel Rebecca. Jade is a fun heroine to follow and actually makes informed decisions. Donovan is interesting and not the typical bad boy love interest. He has his typical dark attitude, but it makes more sense because his girlfriend died under mysterious circumstances and everyone very publicly blamed him for it. I found his independence and vulnerability refreshing. I wish I could see more love interests like him in YA fiction.

The Dead and Buried is well written light horror read with likeable characters and twists and turns. Teen mysteries are usually extremely transparent and predictable, but the revelations at the end of the novel left me speechless! Kim Harrington certainly knows how to craft a dark, unpredictable mystery. I would highly recommend it to fans of her other work and ghost stories. show less

It's a Mean Girl Murder Mystery in Kim Harrington's The Dead and Buried!

What I Loved

An Awesome Heroine: Jade was a GREAT heroine. Now, she wasn’t “kick-ass” or anything like that, but she was strong, warm, and caring. Her only friction was with her step-mom Marie, but author Kim Harrington was very careful to throw a bit of back story in to show how the strain in their relationship developed. I found myself fascinated by her gem collection and the various meanings of each of the stones (kind of a cool hobby), and very curious to find out why there was one item in her jewelry box that she never touched. Jade almost always made good choices as the story progressed, and I never had a moment where I just wanted to scream in show more frustration at some move she made (although a little breaking and entering scene had me raising my eyebrows). Smart, independent, open-minded, protective…just an all-around likeable, relatable female lead.

Sibling Love: I ADORED the loving sibling relationship shared by 17-year-old Jade and her 5-year-old half-brother Colby. It may seem odd that I found this a big enough deal to mention, but the set-up of this story was similar to another series I started last year, the Bad Girls Don’t Die series by Katie Alender, where the sibling relationship bothered me. In the first two books in that series (I haven’t gotten to the third book yet) there was such an incredible lack of love and sympathy on the part of the lead character for her younger sister that it became an issue for me. With The Dead and Buried, however, I found the loving and protective relationship between Jade and Colby to be much more satisfying, especially since it provided a real motivation for Jade to solve the mystery of mean girl Kayla’s death.

What I Liked

The Mystery: Okay, okay, I figured out who the murderer was pretty early on (and after checking out some of the reviews on Goodreads it seems like this is pretty common), but I still enjoyed the mystery and seeing Jade track down the clues that would lead to the truth. Kim Harrington tries to throw in a bunch of red herrings – some of them good, some pretty obvious – but I was firmly set on who the culprit was due to the lack of motive. It wasn’t until a big confrontation near the end (with the wrong suspect, BTW) that the truth came out and I could see why things played out the way they did. This was confirmed when the correct suspect was finally identified. So even though the destination was obvious, I still enjoyed the journey.

Mean Girl Turned Mean Ghost: Kayla was an intriguing character, both in human and ghostly form. The human side was introduced via journal entries scattered throughout the story and gave a glimpse into a girl who knew she was a “mean girl” and owned it. Her ghostly presence, meanwhile, was a lot creepier and put some threat into the story. I wish this ghostly side of things had been played up a bit more by the author, to give a stronger feeling of menace and urgency to the story. If Kayla’s ghostly role had been emphasized more, I think I would have bumped this section up into the “What I Loved” category; as it is, I liked the threat Kayla represented while feeling a tad disappointed it wasn’t bigger.

Narrative Style: Kim Harrington has a nice, natural flow to her writing that had me zipping through the story. It was very easy to fall into the rhythm of the narrative, and I thoroughly enjoyed Jade’s voice throughout. There were a couple of typos that showed up near the end that threw me out of things for a few moments (they always do), but overall it was a very smooth read.

What I Didn’t Like

Shallow Romance: I really liked the idea of Jade’s love interest Donovan (I’m a sucker for the broken, haunted, artistic type just like Jade), but there just wasn’t enough development of his character to make the romance sing. One thing I really liked about Donovan, however, was his reason for liking Jade and finding her interesting; there’s a very nice scene where he confesses his feelings and explains what he sees in her. If only there had been more moments like this, where they could get to really know each other and he could pop off the page as a strong romantic interest. As it was, the romance was a bit shallow and lacking.

Conclusion

Even though I wasn’t completely sold on the romance, Kim Harrington’s The Dead and Buried was a very enjoyable story with an awesome heroine, a wonderful sibling relationship, and a nice mystery at its core. Throw in a bit of ghostly menace from a murdered mean girl, and you have a great little nighttime read. show less

I'm kind of a weirdo. I hate being scared, but I love scaring myself. Sometimes I just sit around thinking about the scariest thing that could happen right at that moment. I also often want to believe that places are haunted and hope to someday join TAPS. Therefore, the summary of this book intrigued me big time and I just knew I needed to read it!

I went in realizing that YA and MG books are never quite as terrifying as books found in the Adult genre, but I was hoping that the creep factor would still be high. A girl was murdered in her own home and the killer is still on the loose! It was an enjoyable read, but I consistently found myself thinking that this would be the perfect Disney Channel original movie, minus the whole possession show more and Ouija board bit. I doubt Disney would go for that. (Anyone else remember the awesome movies of the late nineties, early two-thousands? Basically just about everything prior to High School Musical.) Basically what I'm saying is that the creep factor isn't quite there but it's a fun read for those nights you're missing the heyday of Disney or TGIF on ABC. show less

I really liked The Dead and Buried. It reminded of The Haunting of Sunshine Girl a great deal. It is the story of Jade whose mother has died and her father has remarried. When Jade's family moves from her small town to a suburb of Boston, Jade is not only thrown into culture shock but also into a house that is haunted by the teenage girl who died there. Jade's half brother, Colby, is the first one to interact with the ghost of Kayla Sloane. He calls her the "glimmering girl." Kayla was murdered in Jade's new house and wants Jade to find out who pushed her from behind when she toppled down the stairs to her death. Many suspects inhabit this story along with motives ranging from jealously to unrequited love. This story is really fast show more paced and enjoyable. show less

Jade has always wanted to move to a bigger town and a bigger house, and she's finally gotten her wish. Unfortunately, when school starts and she realizes that everyone is whispering about her behind her back and she is the last one to find out why, she goes from excited to peeved quickly. When she confronts her father and stepmother, she finds out that the only way they could afford the bigger and much newer house was because a girl had died there, Kayla Sloan; a girl who would have been in her class that year and who was one of the most popular, charismatic, and yes, vicious students in the school. All of the kids, even her friends, were afraid to cross her because if she was mad at you, or even just bored that day, she could make your show more life a living hell. The biggest problem, though, is that her death was a mystery in that she either tripped and accidentally fell down the stairs in the house, or was pushed. When Jade has a party and some of the kids decide to try to contact Kayla's spirit via a Ouija board, they are a little bit too successful, and that's when the trouble really begins.

I read Kim Harrington's books Clarity and Perception a while back and really liked them, so I was excited when NetGalley approved my request for The Dead and Buried. I loved the premise and when I got into it, I liked the characters for the most part. Jade was enough of a rebel that she befriended who she wanted to regardless of popularity, which I really enjoyed. I really wanted to love Donovan because he was the moody artsy boy who I usually go for in books, but he always seemed to be hiding something, and that made got a bit wearing. Kane was okay, but I was usually pulling for Donovan anyway, so that didn't really bother me. I guess my biggest problem was one that has already been noted in previous reviews: There just seemed to be something missing from this book that would have taken me from liking it to loving it. And I'm not going to mention what happens at the end (obviously!) but I felt kind of let down and wanting more when I finished the book.

I'm still a big fan of Kim's and will definitely read any future books she writes, but I have to say that this one just wasn't as great as I was hoping it would be. I would give it 3 1/2 stars :)

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book free of charge in exchange for my honest review. show less

Jade finally got her wish! She has moved from her small hometown to a big city to live in a big(ish) house and a school with lots of kids. A new life where she has no history.

Until she starts to hear the whispers in the halls, the kids averting their eyes and telling secrets. Jade didn't know the history of her house when they moved here. But now, with the cold spells and things moving when she isn't looking - maybe her new house and new school aren't the only new things in her life! A spine-tingling story that will keep you flipping the pages until the very end!

A great plot with very well done writing. The characters are very real - you feel like you understand what they are doing and why - and Kim Harrington does a great job of show more keeping them true to themselves. Jade isn't perfect, but none of the characters are. The parents have flaws, even the perfect boy has flaws - and that's refreshing to see in a YA novel. show less

In short: The Dead and Buried by Kim Harrington is a tightly plotted murder mystery with relatable characters.

The Dead and Buried is my first foray into Kim Harrington's writing and I have to say it was an absolutely positive experience. Kim Harrington specializes in murder mysteries and it was with this knowledge that I entered into The Dead and Buried expecting to get a good one. Though perhaps slightly predictable, the mystery was indeed well executed. It was tightly plotted, fast paced, and often surprising. I enjoyed this The Dead and Buried quite a bit, actually; it was a breath of fresh air in the wake of some less than impressive books I've read recently.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the characters and the romance in The show more Dead and Buried. Not that I was expecting to hate those things or anything, but I just had been expecting character development to take a back seat to the murder mystery, considering the shortness of the book. But I found Jade to be completely relatable, mature, and level-headed and the romance to be sweet and genuine. I also very much appreciated the time that went into the development of the secondary characters. It was these aspects of The Dead and Buried that I enjoyed most, even more than the well thought out mystery, and that's what surprised me. I was also surprised at how un-annoyed I was with all the high school drama; I usually HATE that stuff.

I can't say The Dead and Buried is a book that is particularly memorable or left much of an impact on me. But do I care much about that when what I got out of it was an entertaining mystery with relatable characters? Not particularly. Kim Harrington has herself a new fan in me! show less