There is a lot to unpack in this one. First, a ten-year-old boy, Miles, witnesses his mother's murder, then years later he identifies the killer and attempts his revenge. After failing, the murderer comes after Miles' daughter, Eva, for his own revenge on his quest to get information. The daughter escapes with her her mother and lives as a gypsy trying to survive after the incident. Unfortunately, the evil trying to catch up to Eva took her mother's life and is getting ever closer.

What did I just read? This book was definitely a departure from the thrillers I've been reading lately, but in such a good way. 4 out of 5 stars.

I can always count on Jennifer McMahon to give me an atmospheric story set in New England. Burntown fits the bill. It's best read in the month of October, but will do any time of the year. Necco has a traumatic event from her childhood that is catching up to her and she must uncover what's really going on before it's too late. Fast-paced and tense, Burntown isn't my favorite McMahon, but there's still plenty to appreciate.

I don't know what I was expecting when I requesting this book. I've seen a lot of books by Jennifer McMahon at the library and this is the first I've read by her. I know people like them a lot and thought this would be on par with a lot of the thrillers out there. Instead I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of the characters in this book. It has a touch of the supernatural to the story. I felt it was beautifully written and I loved the cast of very interesting characters in this book. The mystery kept my focus and I really enjoyed unraveling it. I look forward to more books by Jennifer McMahon.

Note: clearing old books from before 2019

Did not have time to read this book - still on my TBR. Thank you for the opportunity and my apologies for not getting to it.

I'm a big fan of Jennifer McMahon's books, as I enjoy her mystery/horror stories that take usually place in small town Vermont. I had a somewhat harder time relating to the band of characters in this one, but she still came through with an atmospheric and spooky novel that keeps you guessing until the end.

I used to really enjoy McMahon's books when they were more straightforward mysteries, but this one delves more into the paranormal/horror genre which just doesn't appeal to me. Her writing is fantastic, so I was able to read it, but it is meant more for someone who likes that particular genre.

Readers looking for something a little different will enjoy this mystery with lots of secrets that tie everything together. A little romance, thriller and supernatural, this book has something for everyone.

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday for this free readers edition. In exchange, I am providing an honest review.

I have loved the McMahon titles I have read so far. So, of course, I went into this one with some expectations. I came away from it a little flat.

But first, let's do a brief synopsis, shall we?

A little boy, Miles, witnesses his mother get murdered by a man in a rubber chicken mask. Years later that same little boy, now a man with a family, is working on the same machine his dad was when he was little. The machine is rumored to have been invented by Thomas Edison. It worked once and he heard his mother's voice come out of it so he's anxious to make it work again. Miles has so many questions for her and if he can just get the machine to work then he can get some answers. But someone else wants that machine and will go to any length to get their hands on it. In the chaos of a flood, Miles and his family are in danger from both the floodwaters and the person who wants the machine. His daughter and wife get separated from him and his son and we flash forward to four years later.

Necco and her mom have been on their own since that awful day of the flood. That's the day her dad and brother died and she and her mom had to go into hiding. But now her mom is gone too and Necco is on her own. She and her boyfriend live in a car and make money through stealing and her magic trick. One morning Necco wakes up and her boyfriend is dead. She slept through his murder and now the police think she's the one who did it. She goes on the run and hides while she thinks through how to prove her innocence. Joining her in this exile are two people she meets unexpectedly and in them she finds allies. One thing has suddenly become clear, someone doesn't want Necco to live any longer. It was she that was supposed to die, not her boyfriend.

It's that machine her dad built, she knows it is because her mom told her other people wanted it. So Necco starts retracing the past, trying to connect dots and figure out who wants her dead and why. Will she figure it out before its too late? Her whole family is dead, she's the last one.

As I said above, this title left me a little flat which is a bummer. It felt to me like McMahon had a great idea for a story but as she got deeper into it she lost the thread. I was overall bored while reading the book and I didn't like the end result at all. I couldn't buy in to who the villains were and why. When I got to the reveal of who in the story was after Necco and her family I finished the book quickly, I just wanted to be done. This by no means I am giving up McMahon titles, it's just that this title wasn't for me.

This author is one of my go to authors and I will always read anything she writes. With that said, this was not one of my favorite stories. I unfortunately didn't connect with the characters very well and I believe the storyline, involving a circus was unable to keep my attention. I understand there was a very well woven thought process, building to the end of the story and the imagery produced by certain representations of childhood experiences, but I found it difficult to be interested. I appreciate the original ideas of McMahon and this is one of the reasons she is one of my favorites and will continue to be. I believe this book will speak to the right person.

This is my 4th McMahon book and I think it was my favorite so far. It was so weird! I almost liked the supporting cast of misfits and their backstories more than the main storyline. I loved Pru and the world she created. Not the greatest ending, but a very enjoyable journey.

Burntown is a little bit all over the map. It incorporates many genres (fantasy, supernatural, suspense) and didn’t always work for me. The journey towards the ending was good but the ending was a little meh for me.

Ten-year-old Miles wants to be Robin Hood. He's playing in his backyard with a recent gift he received - a bow and arrow - while his mother suns herself nearby. It all seems like a happy, typical Summer afternoon until a man walks up from out of the woods toward Mile's mother. He leans over, whispers something in her ear, she looks up to smile at him and he slits her throat. All the while wearing a chicken mask.

Years later, in a small mill town, Eva grows up watching her father create magical inventions in his small backyard shed. His most famous and troublesome invention is based on plans he holds dearly. Plans written by Thomas Edison. Yes, the Thomas Edison, the lightbulb guy. One of the most famous inventors of the modern world.

Eva's father is Miles, the now grown-up child that witnessed the brutal murder of his mother.

This machine, clunky and awkward and mysteriously unbelievable, can speak to the dead. When Miles completes the build and Eva stumbles into the shed while it is running, she discovers the terrifying truth - that the machine is real.

Tragedy strikes and the story becomes incredibly convoluted. Storms rage the neighborhood and the nearby river floods, devastating everything in its path.

Eva and her mother escape, but the death of Miles and Eva's brother, Errol, is the new reality that the women have to face. They live on the streets and become involved with the infamous Fire Eaters.

The story gets more tangled from there and it's difficult to tell which way is up, what is truth and what is imaginary. Unbelievable characters are introduced - a local school girl turned drug dealer, the cafeteria lady who believes herself to be part of a circus, Fred the strongman and local delivery guy, and a dangerous man known as Snake Eyes.

The story, while quite the page-turner, is difficult to follow at times. Characters are introduced in a way that makes the story hard to follow at times, as the connections do not make sense until later in the novel. Plot lines twist and turn, creating a definite page-turner, albeit a dark one.

There is fantasy, romance, horror and a smidgen of comedy. The book is a definite page turner, but not one of McMahon's best. Burntown is a stunning blend of supernatural and thriller, but the ever-growing and complicated family tree is slightly maddening.

Having read many of McMahon's books, there's one thing that can be said about this one - her ability to draw fear out of the reader is showcased incredibly in this novel. A good read, but not her best.

Jennifer McMahon's latest book is a murder mystery laced with supernatural elements. Miles Sandeski was 10 years old when he witnessed his mother's brutal murder by a masked man. His father was suspected of the crime and was later found drowned, a presumed suicide.

One of the things Miles inherited from his father were the plans to a strange invention--something that Thomas Edison had drawn up, plans which were stolen by an ancestor of the Sandeskis. Many years later, Miles succeeds in assembling a machine from the plans and opens a door to another realm with disastrous results.

There is a night that marks a 'Before' and an 'After' in his family's lives and the events of that night send his wife and daughter into hiding. Can his young daughter discover the truth before it is too late?

My rating is actually somewhere between 3 and 4 stars for this one. I've read only one other of McMahon's books, The Winter People, which I thought was much more suspenseful and eerie. But I liked this mystery enough that it has awakened an interest in me to read her others.

The mystery was pretty decent, although I spotted one of the plot twists early on and was curious about what was going on with that small bump in the storyline. I personally didn't care for the use of hallucinatory drugs as a means for self-revelation in the story. Can't we be goddesses without drugs?

Thanks to the Doubleday Keep Turning Pages group for a hardcover copy of this book through their giveaway!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Highly recommended read! Thanks for providing through Net Galley. Five Stars *****

Burntown is a mystery thriller with a supernatural twist!

3.5 Stars

Review on Goodreads

3.5/5 Stars

Burntown followed the traditional path of Jennifer McMahon books for me. Grabbed my attention in the beginning. It got bogged down in the middle and left me feeling slightly overwhelmed and scratching my head, but knowing I needed to push through for a WTH? ending. Same happened here. It is for this reason Ms. McMahon is on my list of recommended authors. Burntown simply confirmed that.

Reviewed for publisher through Netgalley.

Burntown by Jennifer McMahon is another of those novels where the author is exploring different genres and boundaries and ends up with something a mixed bag. Confusing and stunted at times, it is only the intense storytelling of McMahon that keeps this book moving along.

Eva's father, Miles, was an inventor of sorts. Out of the little workshop behind their house, the strangest things would come to life. Until one day her father creates a machine that enables him to speak with the dead.

"...Mother?' he says, fearful. 'Are you there?'
Yes, a voice comes back, louder and female, swimming through waves of electrical interference. It's a voice he recognizes. A voice he's heard in his dreams.
His heart jolts, and what he says next isn't what he's planned for and rehearsed, but it's what he most needs to know.
'Who is he, Mother?' Miles says into the machine. 'Who murdered you?'
A dull roar of static.
'Please,' he says.
And then, in a crackling whisper, she tells him.
'No,' he says, voice trembling, stomach churning. 'That's not possible.'
She repeats the name, and then, she's gone..."

The Dead keep secrets too and now, with the knowledge of who had murdered his mother, Miles is set on a course of action that will cost him everything and Eva and her mother everything as well. Now in hiding, with her mother gone, Eva must unravel the secrets that her father uncovered before its too late. Because the killer who murdered her Grandmother is now after her and there is no one else left.

This book goes from Science Fiction Horror to a mystery to mysticism and then back to fantasy and then Science Fiction and then somehow, a mish mash of them all. But in doing so, the gears do not shift smoothly and you are left with a tale that is disjointed and with gaps of unconnected tissue which leaves it to simply bleed out.

Jennifer McMahon is a terrific storyteller, but Burntown did not work for me.

This was an intriguing story. I wasn't quite sure I was going to enjoy it as it took a bit longer than expected for me to really get hooked. Once I did, it was mystery and murder all wrapped up in a weird but interesting plot.

Doubleday Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Burntown. I was under no obligation to review the book and my opinion is freely given.

Ashford, Vermont is a small college town in New England, which houses a hidden society within the walls and tunnels of old abandoned mills and factories. Necco has been a part of Burntown's underworld since childhood, ever since the night her father, Miles, was taken from her and her mother, Lily. Her mother blames their misfortune on a device that her father built with plans stolen from Thomas Edison's workshop, but Necco does not agree until tragedy strikes again. Does the danger that Necco is facing have anything to do with her past or is it just a terrible coincidence? With the help of her new friends, will Necco be able to move forward?

Burntown suffered from an identity crisis, as it was not enough of a mystery/thriller or a supernatural thriller to fit squarely in either genre. With two timelines being used to explain both the past and the present, the plot was just not cohesive. I did not feel a connection to any of the characters and found the book to be unrealistic and predictable. I am on the fence with Burntown, as I really do not feel strongly enough about it to recommend it to other readers.

“Burntown” eBook was published in 2017 and was written by Jennifer McMahon (http://jennifer-mcmahon.com). Ms. McMahon has published eight novels.

I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The story is set in a New England college town. The primary character is young Eva “Necco” Sandeski.

Sandeski and her mother have been living on the streets hiding from “Snake Eyes”. At first Sandeski didn’t believe in Snake Eyes, but now she knows that he is real and after her. If he finds her she will die like the others.

Her father was a college professor and inventor. Today we would call him a “Maker”. He had plans for a novel device, supposedly designed by Thomas Edison, which would allow communication with the dead. Once he built the device, he found that it worked, but he heard from more than just the one he wanted to hear from.

That device led to his death. Sandeski and her mother ran away from their home. Sandeski lost memories of the tragic day due to a bump on the head or the anguish of the event. Now her mother is gone too. The police think Sandeski is responsible for a murder, and Snake Eyes is on her trail. She is running for her life. 

Drawn in to this is 17 year old Theo Sweeny. She has the reputation as a squeaky clean young lady, but she has been convinced to sell drugs at her High School by the college age woman she has become romantically involved with. But then she looses the drug money she had collected and the dealer is after her. Sweeny and Sandeski become allies through unexpected circumstances.

I enjoyed the 7.5 hours I spent reading this 304 page Mystery Thriller. I would also say that this is a Young Adult novel at least in part due to the age of the girls, but it deals with serious topics. While not quite as intense, this novel felt a bit like I was reading a Dean Koontz novel. I liked the characters involved with the story. They are a mix that you would not normally think of as being allied together. The cover art is OK as it depicts the shack where Sandeski lived for a time beneath the bridge while she hid out with her mother. A lot does happen there in the story. I give this novel a 4 out of 5.

Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

Good mystery thriller with Young Adult slant