This was one creepy ride into terror!

The town of Shida, Alaska is surrounded in a ghostly mystery that only a paranormal investigator can solve. John Backman a/k/a paranormal investigator receives a urgent message from a man (Judas) that wants him to investigate a home that is steeped in ghostly phenomena.

John just endured the loss of his wife, so he decides to go check it out along with his daughter, Jessica, sister-in-law, Eve, and her son Liam. When John arrives in the town he decides to stay in the home so that he can experience the paranormal activity first hand. Not too long after he arrives and gets all his equipment set up, the house comes alive with activity.

The town is shrouded not only in the mystery of the house, but the town does not like strangers snooping around, so they give John and his family a hard time. The more he tries to find out the history of the house, the harder time he has with the town trying to find out what happened.

What are the secrets surrounding the house? Why are the towns people not wanting to help John? What secrets are they hiding? Who is haunting the house? No spoilers here as you will just have to read the book.

This book just gripped me the more I delved into the story and when I hit the halfway mark, it escalated to the point where I had a hard time putting the book down. The closer I got to the end of the book, the more I read it till the late hours of night into the early morning hours as I wanted to see what would happen next. There was some graphic gore near the end of the book which was a surprise, but it didn't bother me as I just kept reading as I wanted to see how it all would end! Four stars for this one.
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This is the first book in the Jessica Backman series and it's about John Backman, Jessica's father, who is a paranormal enthusiast and ghost hunter. Jessica is a just a little girl when they move to the remote Alaskan village of Shida for the summer so her father can investigate a haunting. John gets in over his head and his final attempt to document the haunting goes seriously wrong when he riles the shadows a little too far.

The author did a great job of portraying the creepy town of Shida and the sinister people who live there. I highly recommend reading if you are looking for a good atmospheric, ghost/ haunted house story. ( )