Bookish Thursday - The House on Linden Way by Elizabeth Maria Naranjo

Just in time for Halloween, a bit of a paranormal read for a book blog tour for WOW-Women on Writing! 

Before I give you my opinion of this quick read, let me give you all the 'official' information.

The book is a ghost story with elements of horror and Gothic suspense. 

This is a perfect October read - and here's a bit more about The House on Linden

Way: 

While passing through her hometown a decade after she left, Amber Blake impulsively revisits her old house on Linden Way. She only means to stay a moment, to show her three-year-old daughter Bee the place where she grew up. But when the kindly new owners invite them inside, Amber cannot resist.

Soon Bee is missing, the owners have disappeared, and Amber finds herself in a houseful of ghosts. Time takes on new meaning as she loses herself in living memories and a past that does not wish to be forgotten. As Amber fights the powerful lure of a childhood she’d long left behind, her tenuous

hold on the real world slips further from her grasp. Is it merely nostalgia she’s battling, or something far more menacing? Who haunts the house on Linden Way, and where are they hiding her child? 

Categories: horror, gothic suspense, haunted house, ghost story, magical realism,

thriller.

Purchase your own copy on:  Amazon

(Note: As of the writing of this post, it was free on Kindle Unlimited!)

And a bit about the author - 

Elizabeth Maria Naranjo is the award-winning author of The Fourth Wall (WiDo Publishing, 2014). Her short fiction and creative nonfiction have been published in Brevity Magazine, Superstition Review, Fractured Lit, The Portland Review, Hunger Mountain, Hospital Drive, Reservoir Road, Literary Mama, Motherwell, and a few other places. Her stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best American Essay, and Best of the Net. All links to Elizabeth's work can be found on her website at elizabethmarianaranjo.com. 

Now for my opinion -

First off, The House on Linden Way is a short book. Only 217 pages. Great, I could finish it off in one setting. Until the end of Chapter 2 and Bee, Amber's young daughter disappears, along with the elderly couple who are living in what was Amber's childhood home.

A parent's worse nightmare - to turn around and NOT find your child! And for it to be in during a visit to your childhood home. Double scary.

Not only am I the mother of 2 girls and grandmother to a 9-year-old girl, but I'm planning a trip next spring to Arizona and will be going through 2 of the cities I grew up in and was planning on stopping and showing my granddaughter. 

So I had to step away from the book for a bit!

Luckily, this book is a short one, because the rest of the book is filled with flashbacks and memories. Or are they? Is Amber reliving her childhood or not? It's a real rollercoaster of a read and one you need to pay attention to. Definitely not a 'put-down-and-pick-up' read.

After getting over my initial scare of the book, this is a book you want to read on a grey, rainy day, curled up in a chair with a hot drink beside you. 

For the whole tour of this book, please visit the following -