I love Darcy Coates' writing and The Folcroft Ghosts is no exception. This is the story of Tara and Kyle, two teenagers who are forced to move in with their grandparents after their mother has a car accident. They have been estranged from their grandparents and when they arrive, there are weird goings on both ghostly and not. Who or what do the kids really need to be afraid of?
The best way I can describe this book is like a slightly older version of Goosebumps, and I 100% mean that as a compliment. It has a lot of the features of a Goosebumps premise (sudden move, two siblings, weird behaviour from relatives) with the more advanced writing you would expect. I would class this as a YA horror book as it lacked some of the depth I would expect from adult horror, but that made it no less enjoyable to me. I'm always excited when I can't predict where a haunted house book will go because the premise is used so often, and I devoured this book to find out what happened next. The characters were interesting, there were some creepy moments and it definitely has a unique voice.
I had actually forgotten that three short stories follow the main story so I will talk about those briefly. I had read two of them before in other Coates' collections (the sub-basement one and the crypt one) and I like both of them a lot. I feel the basement one has much more of an atmosphere, as well as being less predictable. Both are brilliantly written though and I really do love Coates' writing style when it comes to horror. The third one, 'Clockwork', was new to me and I was totally sucked into it. Again, it was unpredictable and had such a creepy atmosphere sewn throughout. These stories were a nice surprise and a bonus to an already great book!
Overall, this is a great ghost story for a teenage audience or for people who enjoy reading YA horror. It has a lot of the elements from nostalgic horror reads but manages to have a plot that goes beyond the basic haunted house premise. I will continue to seek out more of Coates' horror stories as she always manages to deliver a good time.
Overall Rating:
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