The Skeleton Key by Tara Moss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The third Pandora English book was as enjoyable as the others in the series.
Pandora lives with her Great Aunt Celia in her mansion in Spektor, a suburb in Manhattan that is not shown on any map. Many supernatural goings on happen in Spektor, involving vampires (known as the Sanguine) and ghosts just for starters!
Great Aunt Celia is a powerful witch, she has various people of the Sanguine persuasion living in her mansion, and Pandora herself can see and talk to the dead.
Pandora is very fond of one particular dead bloke - Lieutenant Luke, a Civil War soldier. He can become flesh and blood again during the full moon, and, as the story opens, Pandora and Luke are going on a date outside the confines of the mansion - something they haven't tried before. Things seem to be going well - until Luke becomes ghostly again and is drawn back to the mansion by a mysterious evil force.
While Pandora is exploring the mansion, trying to find Lieutenant Luke, amongst other things, she encounters the ghost of Elizabeth Barrett, who was the wife of the architect of the mansion, Dr Edmund Barrett, whose mysterious laboratory is in the bowels of the mansion.
Pandora meets Dr Barrett (who died from spontaneous combustion a century or so before) and his companion, a necromancer who is sharing Dr Barrett's body in a creepy, 'Voldemort in the first Harry Potter book' type of way. The necromancer's aim is to raise the dead and take over the world. You know, the usual! And to do so he wants to open the portal to the Underworld. Which happens to be below the basement level in Great Aunt Celia's mansion.
Things get pretty dicey for a while with zombies all over the place, and it seems only Pandora can beat the evil necromancer using her own necromancy powers, but she's not really sure how!
Meanwhile, Jay Rockwell, a previous love interest of Pandora's, shows up again, her boss, Skye DeVille, has been turned into a vampire, Lieutenant Luke turns evil, and some evil vampire models try to kill her. So it's all happening!
Pandora discovers powers she didn't know she had, and the true purpose of the skeleton key in her possession is revealed. And she gets promoted!
It's all good fun - a light read with enough interest to keep the pages turning, with some humour and interesting twists. Is there any future for her and the handsome (but dead) Lieutenant Luke? Or will she choose the handsome (but very much alive - and wealthy) Jay Rockwell? Hmmm. Perhaps I'd better read the next book to find out!
View all my reviews
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The third Pandora English book was as enjoyable as the others in the series.
Pandora lives with her Great Aunt Celia in her mansion in Spektor, a suburb in Manhattan that is not shown on any map. Many supernatural goings on happen in Spektor, involving vampires (known as the Sanguine) and ghosts just for starters!
Great Aunt Celia is a powerful witch, she has various people of the Sanguine persuasion living in her mansion, and Pandora herself can see and talk to the dead.
Pandora is very fond of one particular dead bloke - Lieutenant Luke, a Civil War soldier. He can become flesh and blood again during the full moon, and, as the story opens, Pandora and Luke are going on a date outside the confines of the mansion - something they haven't tried before. Things seem to be going well - until Luke becomes ghostly again and is drawn back to the mansion by a mysterious evil force.
While Pandora is exploring the mansion, trying to find Lieutenant Luke, amongst other things, she encounters the ghost of Elizabeth Barrett, who was the wife of the architect of the mansion, Dr Edmund Barrett, whose mysterious laboratory is in the bowels of the mansion.
Pandora meets Dr Barrett (who died from spontaneous combustion a century or so before) and his companion, a necromancer who is sharing Dr Barrett's body in a creepy, 'Voldemort in the first Harry Potter book' type of way. The necromancer's aim is to raise the dead and take over the world. You know, the usual! And to do so he wants to open the portal to the Underworld. Which happens to be below the basement level in Great Aunt Celia's mansion.
Things get pretty dicey for a while with zombies all over the place, and it seems only Pandora can beat the evil necromancer using her own necromancy powers, but she's not really sure how!
Meanwhile, Jay Rockwell, a previous love interest of Pandora's, shows up again, her boss, Skye DeVille, has been turned into a vampire, Lieutenant Luke turns evil, and some evil vampire models try to kill her. So it's all happening!
Pandora discovers powers she didn't know she had, and the true purpose of the skeleton key in her possession is revealed. And she gets promoted!
It's all good fun - a light read with enough interest to keep the pages turning, with some humour and interesting twists. Is there any future for her and the handsome (but dead) Lieutenant Luke? Or will she choose the handsome (but very much alive - and wealthy) Jay Rockwell? Hmmm. Perhaps I'd better read the next book to find out!
View all my reviews