Review: The Splendor Falls by Rosemarie Clement-Moore

 

Title: The Splendor Falls

Author: Rosemarie Clement-Moore

Published: September 2009

Hardcover: 518 pages

Reading Level: YA

My copy: Received via trade on swaptree.com

My rating: 4 out of 5 wicked stars

Blurb:

Can love last beyond the grave?

Sylvie Davis is a ballerina who can’t dance. A broken leg ended her career, but Sylvie’s pain runs deeper. What broke her heart was her father’s death, and what’s breaking her spirit is her mother’s remarriage—a union that’s only driven an even deeper wedge into their already tenuous relationship.

Uprooting her from her Manhattan apartment and shipping her to Alabama is her mother’s solution for Sylvie’s unhappiness. Her father’s cousin is restoring a family home in a town rich with her family’s history. And that’s where things start to get shady. As it turns out, her family has a lot more history than Sylvie ever knew. More unnerving, though, are the two guys that she can’t stop thinking about. Shawn Maddox, the resident golden boy, seems to be perfect in every way. But Rhys—a handsome, mysterious foreign guest of her cousin’s—has a hold on her that she doesn’t quite understand.

Then she starts seeing things. Sylvie’s lost nearly everything—is she starting to lose her mind as well. 

My thoughts:

Wow. This book wrapped me in and I stayed up until 3 am to finish it!!  Sylvie was a pretty likable character even if a little self absorbed at times.  She was unhappy to say the least when she was sent off to Alabama to a cousin she had met once while her mom and new "step-shrink" went on their honeymoon.  As she gets there she meets two guys that she has totally different reactions to...not to mention starts seeing ghosts and hearing sounds!

This book is like an old gothic ghost story with a touch of mystery and romance.  At first you aren't sure who to trust, but the plot isn't so thickly written that you are guessing until the end, I figured it out about half way thru.  That didn't necessarily take away from the book, it just didn't have a shocking ending.  The book was pretty long at 500+ pages so at times I wished it moved along a little faster, but overall I really enjoyed it and loved the spookiness about it.

If you enjoyed Beautiful Creatures and/or Ruined, you should like this book.