House of Secrets

"I really enjoyed this story. It reminded of The Series of Unfortunate Events, which I LOVED as a child. Who doesn't adore a book with pirates, friendly giants, and an evil witch? A story within a story is truly an adventure! This book was definitely written for young readers but adults can enjoy it too! Two out of five stars."

"Took me forever to finish this book because there were just so many things I didn't like about it. I'm speaking of the two Winchester Books that really could have been edited into one.<br/><br/>As others said, the plot seemed fairly predictable and the more I read it, the more I felt this should be a YA book, considering how it was written. The only thing I had trouble figuring out was who Milo was. I had my suspicions - and was right, but it didn't make sense until the explanation in book 2. But honestly, I felt she could have wrapped things up in book 1.<br/><br/>So many issues with this book that I couldn't ignore. <br/>1. I found it ridiculous that the murderer would not have destroyed evidence linking him to the murders (i.e. Murder weapon) after 20 years. <br/>2. The one ghost can hurt people and really hurt Bailey, which caused two issues for me. Why would she hurt the people she wanted help from? And how come the ghost easily attacks Bohdi and Bailey, but never her murderer who visited the house many times? Makes no sense. And if the other ghost has a stronger physical presence (can be seen and touched) why couldn't he deal with his murderer himself? (because if thee ghosts could there'd be no book, but there has to be plausible reason why they couldn't do this themselves and none is given)<br/>3. Bailey does research on all these houses and it was common knowledge the house was haunted, but she never came across anything about hauntings so it was a complete surprise to find a ghost.<br/><br/>There were just so many other plot inconsistencies but too many to mention. I also felt the blog posts were too much. We get she's a blogger. Don't need so may complete blog posts that don't do anything but slow down the narrative (with the exception of maybe two). I found myself skimming just to see how it ended, which was about what I expected. <br/><br/>I didn't read the second set of books after seeing reviews that it was basically the same kind of thing. <br/><br/>If you have a teen who likes mysteries and ghosts then maybe they'd enjoy this but an adult reader might just be distracted by all the plot holes and predictability."

"I love this story about the walker children who's dad got in a work incident there left to move,they move into a victorian home thats suprisingly cheap,suspiciouse am i right?then the wind witch (dahlia kristoff) sucks them into her dad (denver kristoff) book world must read for fans of #harrypotter #family and more!"