The Visitor (The Graveyard Queen, #4)

by Amanda Stevens

Khristine Hvam (Narrator)

• ISBN13: 9798200023219
• Publish Date: 29 March 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Imprint: Tantor Audio
• Format: Audiobook (MP3)
• Duration: 10 hours and 15 minutes
• Language: English

Reviews

[jesstheaudiobookworm]

The Visitor may have been the creepiest installment in this series and that’s saying a lot. Like The Kingdom, it explored another side of Amelia’s heritage. Believe it or not, The Visitor had a creepier angle than The Kingdom. Creepy or spooky is the perfect way to describe Stevens’ writing. It’s not necessarily outright scary. It’s never caused me to stay awake at night. But I definitely get spooked while listening.

Amanda Stevens has atmospheric writing down to a science. Curiously enough, the graveyard scenes are among the less spooky. For Amelia, cemeteries are a place of peace. She makes a point of emphasizing that she believes it’s people who are haunted, not places. Therefore, the hauntings can happen anywhere. Stevens also excels at using the five senses to enhance the experience of having a sixth sense. Amelia’s sightings are often accompanied by particular scents (like cloves, in The Visitor) and/or sounds, sometimes even physical sensations.

The Visitor was my second least favorite installment in this series and yet it divulges critical information about Amelia’s heritage and her gift. However, the unfolding of that information felt somewhat fumbly. No matter how much I adore Amanda Stevens’ ability to create such richly tangible settings, I still find her storytelling ability to be slightly subpar. It feels like she struggles to find balance between world building/character development (which she does amazingly) and plot progression. This causes almost all of her endings to seem rushed and thrown together. But by the time I finished The Visitor, I knew I was too far into the series to turn back. On to the next…

[kimbacaffeinate]

I love ghost stories and find old cemeteries beautiful, creepy, and fascinating so it is easy to see what drew me to the Graveyard Queen series. If you have not yet tried them, I recommend you begin with book one The Restorer. While each book has a case to solve the overall arc, character growth and romance make them best read in order.

The Visitor begins with a female entity haunting Amelia. This spirit both fascinates and terrifies her. I was completely hooked and slipped right back into her world. Amelia soon finds herself entwined in a puzzle involving the Kroll Cemetery. The graveyard is over half a century old and her scariest graveyard to date! The tale was spine-chilling with odd, quirky characters, entities, and other forces that delivered a deliciously dark tale.

If you have read the series then you know Amelia has some unique gifts. She has carefully guarded her secret. She even has a set of rules given to her by her father. She has begun to break those rules and forge her own path. In doing so, she has begun to awaken her powers. We see real development in what Amelia is and receive information about her heritage. Stevens’ wove these tidbits into the case revealing information about her power, of darkness to come and information about her parents.

The Kroll Cemetery is home to Ezra Kroll and his disciples. There is a shroud of mystery surrounding their deaths and something is at unrest within the walls of this unusual cemetery. Turn on the lights when reading this folks. Steven’s created some of the most chilling entities. Her writing was so vivid that I could see them, hear their unearthly noises and feel the temperature plummeting. It all gave me chills. As Amelia researches, we see old friends and meet ancestors of Kroll. What a strange family. Some were overly sweet and others well let us just say you will feel the need to cross the street if you see them heading your way. Ever see those old creepy black and white historical photos ..yep that kind of creepy!

The cemetery itself and old artifacts aided Amelia in her research. Stevens’ gives us a quest filled with danger and eerie discovers. I love piecing together this tightly woven mystery. We discover things as Amelia does and I have learned to pay attention and file tidbit as Amelia uncovers them. It is such an exciting game.

The romance between Amelia and Devlin gets plenty of page time. Devlin is annoying me a little, not that I doubt his feelings towards Amelia, but his lack of faith in her grates at me. However, Amelia learns some things that raised questions about their future. It was accidental and left me screaming for more information. Devlin is indeed important to the overall plot but …well spoilers darling.


Copy provided by publisher. This review was originally posted on Caffeinated Book Reviewer