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Rose Marshall died in 1952 in Buckley Township, Michigan, run off the road by a man named Bobby Cross--a man who had sold his soul to live forever, and intended to use her death to pay the price of his immortality. Trouble was, he didn't ask Rose what she thought of the idea. It's been more than sixty years since that night, and she's still sixteen, and she's still running. They have names for her all over the country: the Girl in the Diner. The Phantom Prom Date. The Girl in the Green Silk Gown. Mostly she just goes by "Rose," a hitchhiking ghost girl with her thumb out and her eyes fixed on the horizon, trying to outrace a man who never sleeps, never stops, and never gives up on the idea of claiming what's his. She's the angel of the overpass, she's the darling of the truck stops, and she's going to figure out a way to win her freedom. After all, it's not like it can kill her. You can't kill what's already dead.… (more)
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So our story: Rose Marshall was forced into an accident on Sparrow Hill in her small hometown of Buckley, Michigan, by Bobby Cross, a man who made a bargain for immortality at the crossroads, and now can keep it only through taking in the souls of others who die on the road. But Rose, forever sweet 16 now, doesn't go away. She stays around as a hitchhiking ghost, and gains over the years a reputation - the Phantom Prom Date to humans, a knowledgeable road spirit in the ghost realm - and a greater knowledge of her powers and how the ghost roads work. Among those powers are the ability to become immaterial if she doesn't have a freely given jacket, and to sense upcoming death, and the scent of what kind it is - sometimes, she can stop it before it happens, and she takes it on herself to do so. Much of the action is driven by her working her way around accidents, or around tense situations; usually, they involve one or the other of those abilities.
The stories span decades, and often will jump back and forth time-wise in a given story itself. But mainly, the book hits that sweet spot of ghost stories: a sense of fear and occasional horror, yes, since they're supposed to be scary, at least some of the time. But often, it's the wistfulness of time changing: the differences across time of the people she meets, and of herself, as well; her connections to the people she once loved, her family and the boy she loved; the feel of an America that's just left a bit behind, off the beaten track, shading into the spirit world. That sense of not quite being right and being there is pretty ghostly.
And it's McGuire, so there's some good creativity on display in the stories, too. Some is in the locations: wandering down the Atlantic highway to meet a witch named Apple was very atmospheric, but my personal favorite was the Last Dance diner, the final place for a soul to stop before heading off into the darkness, and how it felt in contrast to the diners I've ended up in over the past few years. And some was in the scenarios: playing with ghost mythology, both for what you expect going in and then what gets et up by her over the course of the book, works well.
The collection does rather have the problems short story collections often have, though: the stories do vary in strength, there are kind of diminishing returns on a couple close to the end, the repetition of the setup and who she is feels like it came from the stories being anthologized, and the ending to it all wasn't as strong as what I'd normally expect from her work.
But overall, I'm glad I came around on Rose - enough that I already bough a Last Dance t-shirt. Hopefully, though, this won't be the last dance we have with the character or this view on America.
There's also a couple tiny mentions of the family in the Incryptid series - one mention of the Healys, and an appendix with Price family descriptions of some of the creatures Rose comes across. Fascinating.
This book is set in the same world as McGuire’s InCryptid but you don’t need to have read any of the books to get the full enjoyment out of this one. There is a second book coming out this summer and Rose does appear in one other book.
Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley
Overall Rating: 3.50
Story Rating: 3.50
Character Rating: 3.50
Read It File It Review: Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire is a collection of stories that were originally published in serial form. I wish that I would have looked that up before reading it because my problems
However, I do want to say this: These ghost stories were fantastic in general. I especially liked the Strogoi named Dimitri (nod to VA)
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The audiobook was very well
This is a well done book about Rose Marshall, she is a famous hitchhiking ghost. The book ambles back and forth throughout time following various stories and adventures in the 60 years since Rose has been dead.
I did look online and this “book” was originally released as a series of twelve individual stories in The Edge of Propinquity over a time period of twelve months (one story per month). Unfortunately you can kind of tell, the book doesn’t flow like a book and there is a lot of repetition from story to story.
Despite all of the wandering there is a point to the story; Rose was driven off the road by a man named Bobby Cross. Bobby Cross has been haunting the highways and sacrificing people he kills on the road for eternal life. Rose has decided that enough is enough and starts to seek out a way to stop Bobby Cross.
I really enjoyed all the ghost mythology and urban legends throughout. I loved reading about the different types of ghosts. Rose is an interesting character and she was fun to read about. Rose is an interesting blend of innocence and experience; she is sixteen years old but in the last 50 years she has experienced all sort of things no sixteen year old should ever have to experience.
If Rose is offered a jacket/coat and puts it on she can become human. This makes for a number of interesting implications. When she is wearing an gifted jacket she can eat, she can feel people, and she can interact just like a human. You can imagine what a lot of the guys who pick her up want in payment for giving her a ride, this is never really gone into in detail but it is definitely discussed. So this “gift” of being able to be human for a time is both a gift and a curse.
I did have a couple problems with this collection of stories as a book. It ambles around...a lot. It's a very wandering story and (while this may accurately portray the life of a ghost) there were times when I wondered if we were ever going to get to the point or the story. This is less of an issue if you approach this as a collection of stories and not as a novel.
The second problem I had is that the story gets very very repetitive. This is probably because this was originally released as separate stories, but Rose repeats herself a lot at the beginning of each part in the book. She explains what the different smells (ashes, lilies, honeysuckle) mean to her over and over. I got a bit tired of the repetition.
Overall though, I did enjoy the world and the story. There is some small tie-in with the Price family from the InCryptid series as well. I would definitely recommend to those who enjoy urban fantasy. This was a creatively done story that was very engaging...if a bit repetitive and wandering at times.
I'm grateful to the B&N bookseller who recommended this book to me. I almost didn't buy it when she mentioned that Seanan McGuire also writes under the name Mira Grant, as my only attempt at a Mira Grant novel was a DNF, but this was a fun book and perfect for October. If you want ghosts without gore, this is your book. It was just the right level of spooky for me.
(Tell [Laura] I love her, says the dying boy--it's Seanan
Anyway, this is a collection of shorts about Rose Marshall, hitcher ghost and psychopomp, and I love them all.
She can tell when someone else nearby is about to die. And sometimes she can save them. Not always, but she has to try. She has witches and banshees and other random
This book is essentially a collection of inter related stories. At first I found it a little off-putting, but once I got into the rhythm of the book I really liked it. It's part of the InCryptid universe, and there are just a couple cross-over references to that series.
by Seanan McGuire
I loved this story! I love ghost stories and this has the charming and the not-so-charming ghosts. This is about a teen that was killed on her prom night. Later, that hit-&-run killer dies too and hunts the girl ghost because she got away. She has
Honestly, that's all the review it really needs, in my opinion, and this is the morning after, so some (groggy) thoughts:
- I got an American Gods vibe off of this. If someone hasn't done it already, someone ought to mail Neil Gaiman a copy of
- I live an hour southeast of Ann Arbor. I.....I really want to know where Buckley Township is in Seanan's head. Really really. Because the town I live in could totally be it. Any of the little towns surrounding me could totally be it. It's so neat (and new) to see where I live reflected in books -- I guess Michigan just isn't cool enough to make it into any other stories.
I think that's all the thinking I can muster this morning. Gods.
Unlike a lot of folk going into this book cold I knew that the "Rose Marshall" stories were episodic and at one time spread across the internet as far as possible. I went into the book knowing this and thus wasn't surprised or irritated by the repetition from time to time. Rose spends half of her time educating the reader (or newly dead) on what it means to live in the Twilight. What you lose, what you gain, what the rules are that govern those who travel the Ghost Roads.
Rose is a "Hitcher" or a "Hitchhiker", she's drawn to those who live their life on the road or will die because of it. That young girl you see on the side of some lonely back road or hanging at a diner off the beaten track? Probably Rose. She'll hitch a ride to get to where she needs to go and maybe, if you're very lucky and your time hasn't come, she can even prevent you from dying on the road.
As she explains the stories aren't told in a very linear fashion, not til closer to the end when they begin to bleed into one and other and you can't have one without the other. By in large a good half of the book can be read in whatever order you want. I'm not sure if MacGuire (or her editor or Publisher) decided to mix them up even more. What I can say is that some details you'll read about in one chapter, you won't find out the truth of the tale until a later chapter. And some truths are harder to handle then others.
Woven throughout is Rose's crusade to stop "Bobby Cross" (the man who killed her to become an immortal legend) and her resolve to prevent him from doing to others what he did to her. Sometimes she's successful, other times she's not, but through it all she has a grim determination and resolve. Its more then revenge, though several characters ask her if that's what it is to her. She found a purpose in her aimless wandering after life and she was bound and determined to make it through.
I really liked Rose--she's much more practical and pragmatic then many of the characters running around in fiction, especially of those who are "teenagers", but not really (looking at you every single teen vampire/immortal out there). She didn't stay "stuck" in time, she moved on, she grew and expanded and learned how to work the system. She's not without her flaws of course, and we see as she makes mistakes that she later reflects on and realize it was really dumb to not notice the issues, but she felt so very real.
Insofar as other recurring characters go there are a few--Emma, the bean sidhe who Rose befriends, Tommy who she once asked for a ride from, Bobby Cross who we don't meet in the "flesh" until later in the book but who's shadow is long and dark. Emma is likeable and given more depth then either Tommy or Bobby in my opinion. Bobby is...he's portrayed as a certain kind of guy who many of us know or know of.
There's some loose-ish ends that don't get as much tying up, comments from Rose that drift away as her confrontation with Bobby looms, snippets of conversations that she doesn't focus on in her pursuit. And this book can get downright creepy and spooky, though I found myself feeling sorry for many of the people Rose comes across. Some of them just don't know any better, which is sad and pitiful no matter if you are alive or dead.
Rose Marshall is a wonderful, fully realized character and I found myself caring about her and her story
I also absolutely loved the world and mythology that was created for this book, it felt so real, like it should work the way it was described and nothing pulled me out of it and made me want more.
I also enjoyed how each section was a little mini-story in it's own right, it almost felt like a collection of linked short stories with each one flowing in to the next.
I haven't read anything else by this author though two of her series are on my to be read list, I will make trying them a priority after this one and I am really, really looking forward to more in this series.
Thinking more on this, the author reminds me strongly of the early Charles DeLint books and the believable and complicated worlds he created, I've missed urban fantasies like that and this makes me all the more excited for more in this series.
If you enjoy urban fantasies but are tired of the typical vampires, witches and werewolves definitely give this one a try.
Who freakin' knew?! As always in her books, she found a unique angle with stellar world building (on top of
This book is straight UF, not horror. But whatever the case it is a great story.
If you haven't read anything else by this woman, go buy it all. Worth every penny and then some.