Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 13

I am reviewing Darcy Coates book The Haunting of Blackwood House. If you read my reviews on books you know that I pretty much tell the whole story in a synopsis. So, if you want to read this book or any other books I review, I would suggest you don’t read this blog 🙂 Otherwise please read on.

This is first time reading a Darcy Coates book and I just happened to stumble upon it on my Kindle. I have Kindle unlimited so from time to time, they’ll shove books in my face wanting me to read them. I have a soft spot for horror, so I took a chance.

WARNING: SPOIL ALERT

Mara was a young woman from what I gathered. I’m assuming in her young twenties. She lived in a small apartment by herself, but had a boyfriend Neil. Something plagued Mara, and that was growing up with Medium parents (which means they were psychics). She always thought they were fakes and ripped off clients. They always told Mara that they weren’t fakes and that she too had the gift, but she didn’t believe them. She basically dropped her parents as soon as she was old enough to be out on her own.

Mara wanted out of her apartment and her boyfriend wanted to buy her a place or for her to move in with him. She was the type of person that was independent. She wanted to do everything for herself, and that included buying her own home.

When she and Neil started looking for a place, a realtor brought up Blackwood and something drew Mara to that place. The realtor was however iffy about the house, but that didn’t bother Mara. When they arrived to look at the house, Mara fell in love instantly. The realtor however, told her that there was a clause. That someone was murdered in that house. Neil wanted her to look else wear, but Mara was intrigued. She didn’t believe in the paranormal and didn’t care what anyone said. She accepted the offer to move in and the house was hers. Mara was excited to start this chapter in her life.

Soon after Mara moved in, things were starting to turn sinister. She would hear footsteps, see things she couldn’t explain, but she rubbed it off as some kind of explanation. She still didn’t believe in ghosts or hauntings.

The weeks that followed, things just got worse. Most the time Mara was left alone, and Neil went back to his own home. She would see things and hear things all the time. For example, a rocking chair moved on its own, but she dismissed it as the wind blew it. However, one night she dreamt and experienced something she never experienced before. She dreamt about the basement downstairs. It was evil. Pure evil. In the morning, Neil found her locked in the basement, in a puddle of blood that wasn’t her own. She thought maybe she just slept walk. Neil pretty much stayed with her after that.

Neil decided to look into the house. He found out that Victor Barlow, who was found out to be the owner of this home and actually Mara’s great great grandfather, was a murderer. He murdered people and actually was able to put a hold on families that lived there and murdered each other. He recruited a man Robert Cant who would do the killing for him with an axe.

They met with a woman who survived the house, and told them all about the creepy things that went on when her and her family lived there. Neil was worried about Mara, but she still didn’t believe it.

It wasn’t until things started to really take shape, and Mara was falling apart. Neil could see something was going with her, and told Mara to take a break from the house. That’s when he hired a Medium to come into the house and clear it out. While Mara was out she ran into her parents, and she was highly upset and decided to go back to the house.

When she saw the Medium and Neil and another guy in her house, she freaked out. Its like something possessed her. She threw chairs, picked up a table and even flipped out to Neil. She hated him and wanted nothing to do with him. In fact she wanted him dead. They exchanged words and everyone left, with the exception of Mara.

That night while she was laying in bed, things took a turn for the worse. Everyone exposed themselves to her. The blood on the walls, the man with the axe. The spirit living in the attic, that constantly keeps throwing himself out the window. She decides in a hurry to contact the spiritual medium that was there.

They show up to the house and they decide to try and cleanse the house. Mara doesn’t believe in all this psychic bologna, but they were her only hope. She wanted to call Neil, but she felt like she blew it with him and his phone went right to voicemail.

While the psychic and her assistant went to the attic, Mara had to grab some sage from downstairs, but while there, she was strung up by her neck by Robert. She couldn’t breath or scream. Luckily in that moment, Neil came in and freed her. He saved her life.

The psychic and her assistant made their way back downstairs and they tried to get rid of the head ghost, who they thought was Robert. They couldn’t do it. Instead, they provoked Robert and made it worse. He choked the psychic and she passed out. Her assistant ran away. Mara tried to help the psychic, but couldn’t free her. She blacked out.

When she woke up, she saw Neil standing there with a blank look on his face. He moved down to the basement, and Mara called after him. She didn’t like the basement, it freaked her out. Neil was acting strange. He wasn’t the same Neil he was before. Mara didn’t understand. She followed him anyhow. She realized it wasn’t him when he turned to face her. His face was distorted into someone else. She screamed and wanted to run. He picked up an axe and wanted to kill her, but she escaped. She tried calling Neil’s name, but nothing.

She realized she had sage on her and she threw herself on Neil. He managed to cut Mara’s arm with the axe, but she didn’t let that bother her. When she hit Robert with the sage, she realized it wasn’t Robert but it was Victor Barlow. He was the head of the ghosts. He leaped out of Neil’s body and tried to get to Mara, but she was doing a spell on him. She cast him out of the house. When she did that all of the other spirits left.

Neil woke up and Mara began passing out because of all the blood she lost from the axe cutting her. When she came to, Neil was there for her, apologizing. The psychic was fine and the assistant came back. They were impressed with Mara’s skill. The house in Blackwood was now clear.

A few months later, Mara remained in Blackwood. The psychic and her assistant rented a room in her home. Neil and his mother moved in as well. Mara loved it and she wasn’t alone anymore. She even joined the psychic on a few house calls.

She was feeling so good, that she needed to do one more thing. She made up with her parents.

The End

 

I gave this story four stars out of five. At parts it dragged on and some parts didn’t make sense to me. For example, when Neil came just in the nick of time to find Mara, struggling for breath as she was being hanged. It was like okay he helped her, but then they had this whole conversation with her while this ghost is attacking everyone and everything around them. I had to laugh at that. I’m thinking if I was in that situation, I would be freaking out. I know it’s fiction, but come on.  It took me about three months to finally finish it. Once I got toward the end of the story, I started to really get into it. I still however, enjoyed the story. I’m sure I’ll probably read Darcy Coats again.

Otherwise, I think the story was well written and the story flowed. I looked up the author and I saw that she does a lot of fiction stories on hauntings of other places, so I’ll probably have to check them out one of these days.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, I appreciate you all very much!

M.

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 12

I am reviewing the book Watch Me Disappear, by Janelle Brown.

I gave this book book 3 stars out of 4. It was a little hard to get into this book. It wasn’t until the end that I really started to get into it. Therefore, it took me months to finish.

SPOIL ALERT

This book is about Billie Flanagan, a wild child, but she was a woman. She was witty, fun, open, wild, wasn’t afraid of anything. She was married to her husband Johnathan and had a daughter Olive.

Billie has what seems like a life crisis, and starts to ponder her life. She was a free spirit, didn’t really like to be tied down, until she met her husband. However after many years, that didn’t last.

Billie goes off for a hike, leaving her husband and daughter at home. A few days go by and she never came home. Johnathan and Olive start to worry and they send a search party. The search party finds Billies shoe and she is presumed dead.

After a year goes by, Olive starts to have visions of her. She thinks she’s trying to tell her. She gives her clues and Olive tries and finds her. She’s convinced she is alive somewhere. She tells her father, but he dismisses her.

Johnathan feels like he’s going through a midlife crisis. He quits his job, and writes a memoir about his beloved wife. He finds himself however, finding clues and things hidden from him, like the fact that Billie had a daughter, from a previous marriage, that she neglected to tell him. He starts up a relationship with Billies best friend Harmony, and his daughter is skipping school and avoiding him all together. He feels like nothing is going right for him, until he comes across Billies laptop.

Johnathan can’t get into his wife’s computer, so he hands it off to his friend to crack the password. He hired a private investigator, because Johnathan realized a lot of money is taken from him.

Johnathan finds out an address of someone that was Billies computer of a man, or he thought was a man. He also found a letter that Billie wrote. It seemed to be intimate in his eyes. He thought she left him and Olive for another man. He hid the computer and didn’t want to see it anymore. He thought if she wanted to disappear and be with that man then let her.

Olive finds the laptop, and retrieves the address. She leaves school and takes a drive. When she pulls up to this address of Ryan, she knocks on the door and to her surprise she sees her mother looking back at her, except it wasn’t really her mother. It was Billies daughter.

When Jonathan found out that Olive skipped school, he knew that Olive found the laptop and went to that address. He pulled up, knocked on the door and there she was. A younger version of his wife.

Billie did hike up to the mountains, but she knew her life was over with Johnathan and Olive. She faked her own death by throwing a shoe into a rock, thinking she got stuck.

She hired a private investigator to get a new passport and to change her name. She left and started anew in Denmark.

I did like this book, but sometimes I think, she was really selfish. She just left her daughter and husband. She didn’t tell them about her other daughter. She kept so many things from them. She felt like she just needed to start over. That to me is a shitty mother, and really selfish. But hey, it’s fiction right haha it’s different then my other reads.

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Author Expo

What’s up everyone!

I know it’s been awhile, been crazy busy with writing and reading!

Just wanted to let you all know if you live in the Bucks County, PA area, I’ll be apart of a local author expo at Northampton Free Library on Upper Holland Road. The time is 11 until 2.

Hope to see ya there!

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 11

I’m very excited to review this next book. It’s called Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. I gave this book five stars. It was amazing!

Here comes the spoilers in case you want to read this book yourself.

WARNING: SPOILERS

Garden Spells is about the Waverly family. Claire and Sydney. They are sisters that are the complete opposite. Sydney was a wild child while Claire was a homebody, who did right by everyone.

The Waverly’s were highly popular in their cozy North Carolina town. They were popular and well known because they were something magical. They knew things and things would happen when they were around. They weren’t per say witches, but there was something to them. The townspeople didn’t really care for them because they were different. Claire however, always tried to make people like her. She was a caterer and made wonderful meals that everyone loved. She tried to please everyone.

There was Evanelle, an Aunt from what I gathered who also lived in town. She had the power of giving things to people when they need them. A lot of people in town were afraid of her because you never know what she could give you. It was like something called to her and she needed to give it you right away. It could be in the middle of the night and she would have to get it to you.

Sydney ran away from her home where she was living with her daughter Bay and her boyfriend David. David was a bad man. He would beat Sydney within inches of her life, so she and Bay decided to move away from there and back home with Claire, who hadn’t seen her in years. They didn’t always get a long and didn’t see eye to eye.

So when Sydney showed up out of nowhere with a daughter who is five years old, Claire was shocked. She didn’t know what to think about all of this. Sydney wouldn’t tell her anything about the life she was living.

As time passed, the girls became closer. A man named Tyler lived next door to them and Claire had a thing for him, but it was more like he had one for her. You see there was an apple tree that was planted in the Waverly’s backyard. It had a mind of it’s own. It would throw apples and it would spread it’s branches out. It liked the attention. It was magic. It was said that if you ate one of those apples, you would see the one thing you were destined for. It would be either horribly devastating or wonderful.

Tyler ate one of those apples and he saw something that he never imagined. He saw Claire. She pushed him away as much as she could, she didn’t want love or to get hurt. However, there was something about him that drew her in.

Sydney spent a lot of time with Tyler because they were becoming great friends. They would tell each other everything and he would talk about Claire all the time.

Claire would make her infamous magical food to wean people away from her, but it didn’t work on Tyler. She couldn’t stay away from him any longer.

Sydney found Henry, a boy she knew since grade school. She just wanted to be friends with him, but Henry didn’t want that and it took him a good chunk of the book to tell her. At the end, she realized that she loved him. She kissed him to be sure, and it was pure electric. There was one thing though, there was David. The ex.

David pops in at the end of the story during a party that Claire and Sydney are throwing. He carries a gun with him and he shoots Henry in the shoulder. Bay hid away from David, she didn’t want anything to do with him. The tree threw an apple at him, thinking it came from Bay and he ate it. What he saw a few seconds later changed everything. He dropped the gun and he fled.

In the end David gets caught and goes to prison. They believe he saw his death in jail. Henry and Sydney spoke about marriage and Bay became incredibly happy. Claire and Tyler end up together with a baby and an engagement.

They all lived happily ever after.

That was my review of Garden Spells. I know what I wrote didn’t do the book justice but it’s only a tad of what this book is about. If I had to compare it to anything, it reminded me of Practical Magic.

 

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author · 4 Comments

My Husband Broke Me

I know this is personal, but at this point I really don’t care…

As I’m writing this I feel defeated, like I’m lost in limbo. Waking up everyday is a current struggle for me. My husband cheated on me from 2017 until the middle of 2018, and I can’t get it out of my head. I keep thinking about it constantly. I separated from him once, almost twice because of it.

Everyday there is a constant battle within me, should I leave him permanently or should I stay? He apologized profusely, but yet I can’t forgive him. He cheated on me for over a year, and if I had not caught him, it probably would’ve continued.

The funny thing is, I’m one of those people that if the tables have turned and this happened to someone else, I would’ve yelled at them for staying with their significant other. Instead, I’m staying. I love him still, I do. But because what he did, I’m losing it.

I’ve never felt this broken before and depressed by something. I know what I should do, but I don’t know if I can. The other night we were laying in bed, and I told him that I felt really fucked up in the head. That I feel depressed, and I need to see a therapist about all of this. He got mad at me because of the way I feel. He’s a master manipulator, I don’t know if he’s to the extent of an emotional abuser, but he’s something.

I have so many thoughts in my head, but at the same time I’m struggling to understand any of this. I’m honestly so tired and I can barely function anymore. Should I forgive what he did? I don’t think I can ever forgive nor forget. It’s harder because the person that he cheated on me with confronted me last month with more news. This devastated me even more, and brought up the almost second separation. He denies everything that she says, except for the part that he had phone sex with her for over a year. Which just sickens me. I mean who does that? If you’re feeling a certain way, then tell me. Don’t go off and fool around with someone else. That’s just downright disgusting.

I am a novelist, that is what I do and right now, with what he did, I lost my mojo. I have no ambition at all to write anything. It took all my might to even write this. I don’t expect anyone to comment or like my post, but I needed to get this out of my system.

He made me feel like it was my fault, that he cheated. He said that he was lonely and we weren’t being intimate. He’s a tattoo artist, so he constantly tattoos women. A lot of them attractive, so will I ever be able get over what he did? Could he do it again? He keeps saying that he regrets it, and that he would never do it again. All he wants to do is put this all behind him. I’m so glad it’s so easy for him to just forget about it. Of course he would say that, he’s the cheater.

I’m sorry if I’m ranting about this, but I’m hurting and I feel broken. I feel like I lost everything. My best friend cheated on me. For over a year nonetheless. That’s probably the hardest part. What drives someone to really do that to their partner? It is beyond me. I’m just not right these days. I feel like I’m running on fumes, like I’m in a fog.

M.

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 10

 

loreen

 

For this review I’m doing it on the book Loreen On The Lam: A Tennessee Mystery, by Marielena Zuniga. I gave this book three stars. The story was pretty good, but the way it was written was not.

*SPOIL ALERT*

The story starts out with Loreen, a woman in her young twenties, from what I gathered,  breaking out of prison. She meets up with a man that she was supposedly “sleeping with” at his garage and she steals Josh Montgomery’s tour bus.

Loreen breaks out of jail, because she receives a letter from her mama, telling her that she is dying and she doesn’t have much time left.

Loreen takes the bus and drives as fast as she could to her mama, but along the way she meets Tilly. Tilly is on the side of the ride crying and she needs a ride, to get rid of her abusive cop husband. Loreen now takes on the responsibility of this woman. They go on their way, when they meet a mute bible salesman, Splat. However, it turns out Splat isn’t who he said he was. He was a murderer and was on the way to murder Josh Montgomery. What a coincidence.

There are two parts of the story: one is Loreens, and the other takes place in the 80’s and has something to do with her grandfather Mac. Mac robbed a bank with some other people and hid the money and jewels in a cave back in the 80’s. These bad people were trying to look for this treasure, but Mac wouldn’t give it up and tell them where it was. They even threatened to hurt Loreen, when she was a little girl, but Mac still wouldn’t budge.

Meanwhile, Loreen was a woman who broke out of jail, and brought along two other people, now ran into a nun who was broke down in the middle of night. Loreen went out to get her, but Splat turned the gun on her and the nun. Loreen knew he was trouble. Splat made the nun get on the bus.

Throughout the story, all Loreen is trying to do is get home to her dying mama. Obstacles keep on getting in her way.

When Loreen finally makes it home to her destination, she goes to her mama and she is pretty much gone. She tells her that she loves her and apologizes for the daughter that she has become. She kisses her one last time. Her mama’s caregiver gives her a letter containing information where the money and jewels were. Mac wrote it back in the 80’s when he thought he would disappear, because of all the threats made against him. He was presumed dead, and was never seen again.

Loreen was on her way to the cave when Splat went after her with a twist Josh Montgomery, they were heading to kill Josh Montgomery’s wife. They were going to pin it on Loreen. However, when they got there, his wife wasn’t dumb and nailed Splat. His wife listened to Loreen’s story. She was her get out of jail free card.

The end of the story, Splat and Josh Montgomery go to jail for trying to kill his wife. Tilly and the nun are free from the chaos that happened. Loreen finds the money and jewels and returns them. Josh’s wife, gets Loreen off so she doesn’t have to do any time. The biggest shock for me in this story, was that Mac was indeed alive, but dying with the same thing her mama had.

I only gave this story three stars because of the way the book was written. The grammar and spelling were a mess. The story however, was good. Sometimes though, it took a while to get through. Some of the parts were boring. It took me months to get through it.

Have a great weekend!

M.

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Hard to hear

I’m writing in hopes that the woman my husband was speaking to for over a year would come forward. I just want to speak to her and get some things off my chest and ask her a few things.

My husband is acting strange again. For those of you who don’t know my situation. In July I found out my husband was talking to someone else for over a year and we separated, but we got back together.

Lately, he’s being the same way he was before I found out. He’s shady with his phone and he’s coming to bed super late like he used to.

This will always be in the back of my mind because of what happened before with him. I don’t know if I can ever trust him again.

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 9

 

fifty shades

 

my newest review is about the book Grey by E L James. This book is in Christian Grey’s point of view. I did read the Fifty Shade’s books when they first came out and I did enjoy them. However, as I became a writer, I noticed that I didn’t really care for them as much.

When I read Grey, I struggled to get through it. I just wasn’t into it, but I am not one of those people that can toss a book by the way side, so I reluctantly finished it. I am giving this book three stars. It did not hold my interest and it took me a really long time to finish it, although it was a pretty fast read. I found myself over it and over all the sexual escapades that was going on.

*SPOIL ALERT*

The story goes if you don’t know it already. Christian Grey, a wealthy man in his twenties who owns his own huge corporation meets Anastasia Steele, a twenty something college student.

Christian is all about finding a submission for his sexual lifestyle to succumb to his every need. However, when he meets Ana all bets are off. He finds himself having feelings for her, feelings that he’s not used to. He can’t stay away from her and he wants her all to himself.

That’s basically the gist of it. the story line was pretty good, but the writing style just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Nominated 2019 Choice Awards

Hey y’all!

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve been on here and I’m back. I had a slew of things going on in my personal and professional life. I hope everyone is doing well and having a happy new year so far!!

I wanted to let you know that I’ve been nominated for a 2019 Readers Choice Awards for my novel The Betrayal!! I’m very excited!

Click below to vote for me! I’m in genre YA/Middle Grade and it’s on page 12. I appreciate any help and please share! Thank you everyone!

https://www.tckpublishing.com/2019-readers-choice-voting-page/

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 8

For this book review I decided to review What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. I gave this book a five-star rating. I absolutely loved this book and I thought it was an amazing concept of a story. I’m actually jealous that I didn’t think of this when I was writing.

WARNING: Spoil Alert

Alice Love is a twenty-nine year old woman, happily married to her husband Nick and expecting their first child together. Or so she thought!

Alice woke up on the gym floor not knowing where she was. Her spin class friends tell her that she had fainted. She hit her head so hard that she’s forgotten the last ten years of her life. She thought she was still pregnant with her first child and married to her husband. When in actuality, she had three children and now she is separated from the love of her life.

Alice is rushed to the hospital not knowing what is happening. Nobody looks familiar to her, but yet everyone knows her. They call her sister Elisabeth and she doesn’t rush to her side. She calls Nick, but he screams at her. She feels lost and confused. Supposedly all of her relationships crumbled.

Eventually Elisabeth comes to the hospital and Alice realizes that her sister doesn’t seem the same. She’s older, stiff, and cold towards her. They used to have such a wonderful relationship. Elisabeth is flabbergasted by her memory loss. She thought she was faking it, but soon realizes that she is not.

Her mother Barb comes to the hospital and finds out that she was married to Roger, which is Nick’s father. They proceed to tell her that she has three children and Alice is about to lose her mind. She still thinks it’s 2008 and pregnant with her first child.

The doctors send her home, figuring she will regain her memory any day. Her kids are with Nick for the weekend, so Alice doesn’t have to worry about them yet. She’s noticing little flashes here and there of memories, but has no idea what they are or if they are even real. Her sister tries to fill in blanks for her, but has no idea of anything. She’s supposedly dating someone named Dominick, that’s the principal of her kids school. She’s so confused and just wants Nick back. She asks everyone where they went wrong, but nobody can tell her why.

When the weekend came to an end, she anxiously waited for her kids, whom she doesn’t remember and her Nick. She goes outside to greet them and she’s stunned to find out how much they are just like her and Nick with a mix of their own personalities. When she sees Nick, she wants to run to him, but he doesn’t want anything to do with her. They make small talk and he realized that she still has no memory. He’s concerned and asks if he should take the kids and she said no.

As the week unfolds she finds out many interesting things. She had a best friend Gina, who lived next door. They were supposedly inseparable. It turns out that Gina was killed in a freak accident, when a tree landed on her car at a stop sign. Alice and her daughter Madison witnessed the whole thing because they were following her from the gym.

She finds out that Gina’s husband Mike, was caught kissing another woman and that destroyed their marriage, which in turn destroyed Alice and Nick’s marriage.

With Alice losing her memory, she convinces Nick to give her a shot and she tries to break it off with Dominick. She just wants her life back to the way it once was. She discovered in a span of a week, how much she loves her kids and is willing to do anything for them. Supposedly the old Alice was somewhat a cold hearted bitch. Now she has this fresh attitude that everyone likes. They wonder and she wonders if her memory will ever come back.

Alice organized this event that featured the world’s largest lemon meringue pie. It was supposedly Gina’s favorite pie and Alice did this event in honor of her. She convinced a bunch of mother’s and businesses to get together  to help her with this process. Their was a band there set to play all Elvis songs, which Gina loved. All of a sudden Alice felt weird, she was weak in the knees, and she was about to pass out. Nick and Dominick came to her aid for they could see something was wrong. As she laid there for a brief moment, she remembered. She remembered EVERYTHING. All the memories came back to her like a flood. Pouring into her. Her kids being born, her best friend Gina, her and Nick’s marriage, and Dominick. She looked at Nick and Dominick and she flinched. Nick knew she regained her memory and walked away.

Flash forward a few years. It turned out that Alice ended up with Nick after all. I was shocked and I was relieved. I thought the ending of this story was great and I was rooting for their relationship to work out. They surprised her with breakfast in bed and she was happy as can be. The knock on her head was a curse but it turned out to be a blessing.

Also a side note that I didn’t really mention. Her sister Elisabeth and her husband were trying to get pregnant for years and did IVF and every time it failed. They were older and Elisabeth was tired of trying. She and her husband were constantly fighting now and it was starting to ruin their marriage. They decided to stop the treatments, but they had to do their last round first. Elisabeth received the news that she was pregnant. She was devastated, figuring she was going to lose this baby as well.

She didn’t! She ended up having a daughter. Alice and her sister became really close again, as they once were ten years prior.

I loved this story, I really praise the author!