Title: Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day
Author: Seanan McGuire
Publisher: Tor
Release Date: January 10, 2017
Pages: 192
Book Source: Library
When her sister Patty died, Jenna blamed herself. When Jenna died, she blamed herself for that, too. Unfortunately Jenna died too soon. Living or dead, every soul is promised a certain amount of time, and when Jenna passed she found a heavy debt of time in her record. Unwilling to simply steal that time from the living, Jenna earns every day she leeches with volunteer work at a suicide prevention hotline.
But something has come for the ghosts of New York, something beyond reason, beyond death, beyond hope; something that can bind ghosts to mirrors and make them do its bidding. Only Jenna stands in its way.
My Review:
Seanan McGuire knows how to write a great ghost story. I read Sparrow Hill Road a couple of years ago, and enjoyed it, so when I found out McGuire had put out another ghost story, I was excited to read it.
McGuire can be very poetical at times, and this style of writing fit really well with the subject matter. She made all the layers of New York and Jenna even more beautiful and intriguing with this style of prose. Even the way she examines suicide and the unseen in the city, makes these hard subjects more personable.
I would have given this book five stars, but towards the end when we find out who is capturing the ghosts, I just didn’t feel like there was a real reason given as to why. And I felt that a certain character should have known what was happening sooner than they did (even though there is a line or two explaining why they couldn’t sense it). Since this book was shorter, that to me was a big part of the story.
I did think the story ended perfectly, and am hoping McGuire continues to write ghost stories, as well as keeps the October Daye series at the spectacular level I’ve come to expect.