Review: Mary Hades by Sarah Dalton

Mary Hades (Mary Hades, #1)
by Sarah Dalton
Self-published
Ebook (received from Xpresso Tours for review, thank you!)
YA, fantasy, paranormal

Not many seventeen year old girls have a best friend who’s a ghost, but then Mary Hades isn’t your average teenager.

Scarred physically and mentally from a fire, her parents decide a holiday to an idyllic village in North Yorkshire will help her recover. Nestled in the middle of five moors, Mary expects to have a boring week stuck in a caravan with her parents. Little does she know, evil lurks in the campsite…

Seth Lockwood—a local fairground worker with a dark secret—might be the key to uncovering the murky history that has blighted Nettleby. But Mary is drawn to him in a way that has her questioning her judgement.

Helped by her dead best friend and a quirky gay Goth couple, Mary must stop the unusual deaths occurring in Nettleby. But can she prevent her heart from being broken?

I was really happy when I got review copy of Mary Hades - it sounded so good and even though I'm not big fan of ghost stories, it still intrigued me. However, when I started reading the story, I felt disappointed. The Things - how unimagine and boring name and there could have been so many cooler and intriguing names to call them but Dalton chose Things which is pretty boring. Overall at first the book wasn't that good, a little dull even but sometime around 30% in it went from dull to intriguing and downright fantastic. I was so relieved when the story picked pace up and I actually started to care about characters and what happened to them. There was nothing boring or dull after that.

Characters were great, especially when introduced Seth, Neil, Lemarr and Igor. There was great variety and I loved how diversity the characters was but how it was not mentioned in every sentence. So, Neil and Lemarr were gay? Cool, they're also goths but hey, let's instead go a ghost hunt. Dalton really did justice to her characters. Mary and Lacey were also intriguing, well, after the first part of the book. Lacey was witty and oh how much I loved her. Mary was a good, strong main character which is always a huge plus.

There was a romance in Mary Hades. But it was unique, especially how dealt with it at the end of the book - perfect. I don't want to spoil anyone but it was so different from all other YA stories and it was fresh, unique and truthfully, the reason why I liked the end so much. I'm definitely picking up the sequel and any other stories in this series.
 

After a rough start the book was really good, unique even, and I can highly recommend it to everyone who likes paranormal stories. There was so many good notions and quitable moments! Dalton knows how to write a good, strong story with intriguing points. Read Mary Hades, because it's not waste of your reading time.

4 of 5 stars.

 

Mary Hades on Goodreads.

(A copy of this ebook was provided in return for an honest review.)