Tom is a fourteen-year-old boy living with his adopted grandmother when he receives a letter from a law firm inviting him to the reading of a will. It's the will of his great-uncle, Heinrich, his grandmother's brother. He's just absorbing that information when there's a knock at the door. The man at the door is his Uncle Welf.

It's worth noting that Tom had never heard of Great-Uncle Heinrich or Uncle Welf before.

Uncle Welf drives them to the reading of the will, where Tom learns that he will inherit more than ten million euros if he takes control of Heinrich's ghost train carnival ride, the Terror Train, and keeps it operating until he's eighteen. Uncle Welf, of course, will be his agent because he's underage, but he'll have to travel with the ride.

These revelations are followed immediately by the arrival of a very sinister-looking man with a very fake foreign accent, and his companion, a woman dressed equally dramatically in red,00. The man wants to buy the ghost train from Tom for 100,000 euros, a sum he expects to completely overwhelm Tom. He also expects that fourteen-year-old Tom will want to spend it on toys and sweets. The clash that follows is entertaining, and Tom learns something about what Welf is good at. Nevertheless, he signs the will, and Welf promptly gets ready to escort him to the ghost train and his new life.

Things get even more confusing for him, and entertaining for the listener, when Tom meets Mimi (the ghost girl), Hop-Tep (an Egyptian mummy),Wombie (a zombie), and Vlarad, a vampire.

What follows is exciting, confusing, and entertaining. I'm not saying this is great literature, but it is a lot of fun. The full-cast narration is very well done and adds to the enjoyment.

I bought this audiobook. ( )

Great book I can't wait to share it with my great nephew who is 9, he will love it ( )

Amusing jaunt through a monster world via this audible original. Had “Monster Squad” vibes for all the ‘80s kids out there!

A little bit of disconnect for me, with Tom. He’s supposed to be 13 but didn’t sound that age to me, both in mannerisms and the age of the voice actor.

Reminds me of what it must have been like to sit around the radio and listen to a story. A good amount of laugh-out-loud moments in “Ghost Sitter.”

Suitable for families (and individuals, of course) to listen to together. Maybe middle school and up, for comprehension purposes. ( )

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book that is told in episodes. I got this as a free Audible Originals audiobook through my Audible membership.

Audiobook Quality (3/5): This is a full performance audiobook, something I am normally not a huge fan of. However, it worked well for this audiobook. The sound effects and most of the cast was spot on. However I had a couple issues with it. The first huge issue is the ghost girl Mimi who giggled a lot in a high voice that was incredibly annoying. I am not sure why the only female character in here had to be a giggling idiot but yeah, it was obnoxious.

Second issue with the audiobook is that this is done as a series of installments and each installment ends with the theme song for the series. This song was really long. I kept thinking the song was over but then there would be more stanzas of lyrics. I am sure this was cute when this was run as installments but as a shorter audiobook this just didn't work....you hear this song like 5 times in the series of a few hours.

Story (3/5): I enjoyed this more than I thought I was going to. This is very much aimed at kids and the audio performances are incredibly over the top and campy. However, it all kind of works for this story about a teen boy who inherits a ghost train carnival ride filled with real supernatural creatures. I was a bit disappointed that we never actually get to travel with the ghost train...this story is all about Tom's trials as he is starting to refurbish it and get it running. The story is pretty silly but does have a good mystery that is creepy and never too scary.

Characters (3/5): Most of the characters were decently done. Tom comes off as whiny at times but is also a smart kid who has some good ideas and is determined. I intensely disliked Mimi, the ghost, who giggled constantly and acted so silly most of the time I was embarrassed for her. Vlarad (the vampire) and Welf (the werewolf) were more interesting characters.

Setting (4/5): I liked the idea of the ghost train and the fact that most of the story was set on the ghost train. It was a unique setting. I really wish we had been able to travel around with the ghost train though.

Writing (3/5): As I have said throughout this review, this was a very campy and silly story. I wasn’t super impressed with it. However, with the way the audio performance was done it all kind of worked well together. I think younger kids would get a kick out of this. I appreciated the creativity it took to put this together but didn’t really enjoy it a ton myself.

My Summary (3/5): Overall I had mixed feelings about this. It’s one of the better full performance audiobooks I have listened to. However, it is very much aimed at a younger audience. The jokes are incredibly bad and the whole thing is very campy and predictable. I also think there are a couple things in the audiobook production that would have helped this be better; less high pitched giggling from Mimi and eliminating or shortening the theme song interludes between chapters. I don’t plan on picking up any more of these audiobooks if this ends up being a series at some point. ( )

Goofy Ghouly Fun for Kids
Review of the Audible Original audiobook (June 2020) translated and adapted from the German language original "Geister geerbt" (Inherited Spirits) (2015)

This recent English language Audible Original is based on the first book of a popular German language series called Ghostsitter which already has 5 adventures. The audiobook does not mention a translator, so perhaps the author also wrote the English language version. This is a kid friendly audiobook as long as you and your kids are ok with a comic treatment of mythological or undead creatures such as werewolves, vampires, mummies, zombies and ghosts. The flirtatious relationship between the 14-year-old lead character Tom and the ghost girl Mimi seemed very odd though, with hints of stalkerish jealousy displayed by the ghost. This was probably something that only adults would notice though.

Ghostsitter: A Crazy Inheritance was one of the free Audible Original audiobooks for members in June 2020. It is available to everyone for a standard price.

Trivia and Link
The rather catchy theme song was also originally written in German and you can see/hear that version on YouTube here. ( )