Ouija by Zoé-Lee O’Farrell

Today it’s over to Mandie who has a review of Ouija, the second book in the Question Mark Horror YA Horror Novella series and the debut of our fellow blogger, Zoé-Lee O’Farrell. Happy publication day Zoe! Our thanks to the publisher for the tour invite and providing an advance copy of the book for review. Here’s what it’s all about:

About the Book

The only thing for certain is the deaths were no accident.

Rayner High School once a prestigious school stands in ruins after such a terrible event.

A year later, a group of friends return to the abandoned school and their nightmare begins.

Something wants to get out and won’t take NO for an answer…

Ouija is Book 2 in a new series brought to you by Question Mark Horror. For fans of Point Horror, Christopher Pike & Nicholas Pine.

Mandie’s Thoughts

Before I start this review I am going to admit that I don’t normally read YA and I certainly don’t read horror so this book is as far out of my reading comfort zone as I could possibly get, but hey sometimes something out of the norm is a good thing and can actually surprise you in a good way.

The opening chapter of this book certainly leaves the reader in no doubt that something bad is taking place but what you don’t know is why. Fast forward a year and you meet a group of friends who decide that for whatever reason they want to visit the school where the event took place at night and worse still take a Ouija board with them and see if they can raise any spirits that may still be lurking there. Like all teenagers they think they know what they are doing… after all they researched it on the Internet so what could possibly go wrong. Turns out quite a lot.

As events progress you can feel their fear and how it continues to build throughout the book right to the very end. There is clearly something very evil lurking and the author certainly got my mind and imagination going from the start.The pacing of the book kept me turning page after page and I willed the group to find a way to fix things even when I knew that deep down there would be no easy way out for at least some of them.

This is the first book by the author, and I have to say that I am impressed. Zoe O’Farrell has captured the teenager’s attitudes and characters perfectly right down to the disagreements they have and the structure of how the group functions. I have never been one that believes you should mess with things like Ouija boards no matter whether I believe in them or not and now I know why. At only 171 pages this is a small book that packs a punch and may just have me reaching for the horror genre again sometime.

About the Author

Zoé O’Farrell grew up in Watford but left the town life to live by the sea down at the White Cliffs of Dover.
She spends her days working with numbers before escaping in the evening to the world of words and movies. Her go-to relaxation is watching a scary movie or reading a terrifying book!

She is a book blogger and tour organiser just to keep her extra busy. When she is not reading or writing, you can usually find her watching Watford FC or at a gig. Failing that she can be found rolling her eyes at her husband as he acts the same age as her spitfire of a Mini-Me whilst separating her two cats.

Ouija is her debut novel.

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