A gentle mystery which kept me guessing until the end. Not a suspenseful story but an engrossing untying of knots and secrets to the final revelation. I thoroughly enjoyed it, from the setting to the characters and all the romance and angst in between

I didn't like this book at all, seemed everything just kept repeating. It bored me. I hate leaving bad reviews but I just couldn't get into it at all #netgalley #houseofAshes

I enjoyed this book. The main character, Cassie, is having a very bad year, probably quite a few bad years in a row. She and her husband have split after he depleted her trust fund. She’s 37, broke and living in a haunted house. Her great grandparents built the house, but tragically died in a fire. They had three sons who all suffered untimely deaths. Each generation has had tragedy, supposedly from a curse on the grandparents.
One day a young couple turn up at the house, Vince and Ashley. They offer to help around the place for free room and board. Cassievreally connects with the couple, even though most of the townspeople warn her against them. After an enjoyable summer together, they disappear. The local police and FBI are called in.
This book is in the vein of Phyllis Whitney, a bit of romance, family saga, atmospheric setting. Easy to recommend to readers who want a gentle mystery without blood, sex or language.
Thanks to netgalley for the ARC.

House of Ashes is an interesting read from the movement back and forth between current date and eighty years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed the part of the story relating to the aledged curse and the clues to unravel the truth around it. However, I found the mystery of the missing couple to be weak, and the solution only made for a quick and tidy ending without much suspense or complex mystery to solve.

I started out feeling lukewarm towards House of Ashes, because at first I didn’t care for the main character, and although the author apologizes for taking artistic license with the topography of Cape Cod, although she mentions Cape towns, and a few roads, she’s changed so much, I don’t really think she can call it a novel set on Cape Cod. It could be any seaside town, and living on the cape, this really bothered me.
But then the story started picking up and I was happily sucked in because the mystery was an interesting one. Although I think there are too many tangents, the story kept me guessing to the end, and that was a bonus. Throw in the ghosts, and past history, and the book turned out to be okay.

Great mystery! I love books about old houses and possibly a haunting. This one had an element of romance too. It kept me engaged and guessing until the end. Thanks to Crooked Lane Books and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

A gentle mystery which kept me guessing until the end. Not a suspenseful story but an engrossing untying of knots and secrets to the final revelation. I thoroughly enjoyed it, from the setting to the characters and all the romance and angst in between.

Summary: Battersea Bluffs at Lavender Hill is a grand old Cape Cod house in the town of Whale Rock. The weather-beaten Victorian is home to Cassie Mitchell and quite possibly the ghosts of her ancestors, Percy and Celeste Mitchell. After her soon to be ex-husband spent her sizable inheritance, Cassie is struggling to find a way to keep The Bluffs out of foreclosure.

While she’s mulling over her insufficient options, an unexpected partial solution wanders onto her property. Ashley and Vince Jacobson and their dog, Whistler, are between jobs and low on funds. They offer to renovate Cassie’s carriage house into a guest cottage in exchange for lodging. The future rent from the cottage will help offset Cassie’s debts. She enthusiastically embraces their offer.

After the couple mysteriously disappears leaving only their dog and a puzzling piece of rope behind, the local police and the FBI try to track them down. Despite their wide resources, law enforcement can’t find any trace of Ashley and Vince Jacobson. Cassie, having grown quite fond of the couple, knows that it is up to her to solve the mystery of their disappearance.

Comments: This book summoned some happy memories for me. My family vacationed on Cape Cod each summer and my grandmother lived there for a few years. Usually we rented cottages barely bigger than my bedroom, but one year we rented a larger, two-story house that came with its own name: Ferncliff. My 12-year-old imagination went into overdrive as I explored the rooms. I was sure the house had to be haunted! Alas, the only odd thing I saw during my stay was a squirrel that struggled to get a golf ball up a tree, only to be very disappointed that it wasn’t a nut.

I enjoyed the story but at times Cassie annoyed me. Her obsession with finding the two missing people seemed a little over the top since I didn’t feel like she had known them long. There were times the story dragged and others when it flew along. It did remind me of the old Phyllis Whitney books, some romance, ghosts and a mystery.

House of Ashes had many elements; romance, heartbreak, mystery, paranormal happenings and intrigue. Marion was able to blend all those elements together into a wonderfully spellbinding book.

First, I'd like to thank Netgalley, Crooked Lane Books, and Loretta Marion (the author) for allowing me to have this ARC of House of Ashes.

**spoilers**
House of Ashes opens with the tragedy that befalls Percy and his wife Celeste. Percy blames everything on a curse that was cast onto them by a scorned Robert Toomey.

80 years later and Cassie (a descendant of the Mitchell's) is in danger of losing the beloved Bluffs, her family's historic home on the cliffside. She is going through a lot of hard times and, just when she feels that she's about to lose everything, along come Ashley and Vince with their dog Whistler. This young couple help save her and her home. She loves the solace in their friendship and the spirits of Percy and Celeste seem to agree...until a more pervasive spirit begins to make itself known. Soon, Cassie begins to feel something isn't right and the more she tries to figure things out, the more questions she ends up with.

Then Ashley and Vince vanish without a trace. Reeling with the disappearance of her dear friends, Cassie stops at nothing to try and figure out what happened to them...ignoring the sense of looming danger. Even the spirits seem to want to help. The town is abuzz with rumors, but Cassie won't stop until she knows the truth, even if those secrets should stay buried.

A great read for anyone who likes a good mystery. This book kept me guessing until the very end and I was definitely surprised!

It was OK. I did finish it, but there was not much to this book. The shifts in time and the fire and ghostly presences did very little for me. The ex-husband and his depleting Cassie's inheritance and the strange young couple that Cassie takes in so easily didn't make her seem to have good judgement. It is really hard to think of 100 words when the book was so light. I didn't think the curse ever sounded very real either.

“Leave the buried past where it is. You will hate how it changes you.”

Although I was in the middle of a reading slump, I still pushed through to read this book. Haunted anything intrigues me, always… so I was very excited to be accepted for the ARC through #NetGalley.

The story begins by tossing you into the past, which I found pulled me in pretty fast. After that, we are taken to present time in the midst of a missing persons investigation, but then thrown back into the past just a smidge to go over the details leading up to the missing persons situation.

Though it was a theme, the haunting isn’t the star of the show. The who, what and why of the missing persons case is. There is a tiny bit of romance, but it doesn’t overpower the actual story, which was nice.

In the end, House Of Ashes was a quick and enjoyable read and I recommend it to anyone who loves a good mystery.

I feel like I’ve read this book before. Many times. There was nothing new or even very original here. What started out as the potential for an interesting ghost story quickly disintegrated into a soap opera starring a not very bright heroine. The story just seemed to plod along and then it ended in a way that made me feel the author might have run out of steam. While I did appreciate the description of the house and surroundings and how the author was able to create a foreboding atmosphere, I really wouldn’t commend this book.

The locals say that Battersea Bluffs, an old estate on Cape Cod is haunted. Painter Cassie Mitchell, whose great grandparents built the house isn’t sure herself, all she knows is that she’s in danger of losing her family home because of her scheming ex husband and a mountain load of debt. When a young couple appears as if from nowhere and offer to help Cassie with repairs, she’s quick to take them up on it, but they disappear as suddenly as they appeared, leaving no trace of who they were or where they went. Determined to discover who the couple was, Cassie starts looking into her family’s past, even though local, and even federal law enforcement officials warn her against it. I loved this book, the brooding atmosphere, the old house, ghostly murmurings and the Cape Cod setting held me spellbound