I am not a person who reads ghost stories. I never go to see scary movies and never have.
That said, I wanted to read my friend Killarney’s book, so I decided to #bebrave and read it anyway.
Tale Half Told: A Christmas Ghost Story is a great book! It starts out with a brother and sister, Johnny and Linda, and a husband and wife, Michael and Susan, travelling together when they decide to take a brief detour. It turns into a nightmare. It’s a nightmare with a purpose, however. Their current situation parallels a tragic event from the past which somehow begins playing out in unusual ways in their present.
The two women, Susan and Linda, are both nurses, so (being a nurse myself) I was immediately interested. The name “Johnny Vincent”, Linda’s brother, was a perfect choice on so many levels. “Vincent” made me think of Vincent Price. I kept seeing Jack Nicholson’s psychotic grin from the move The Shining when I heard that name. [Full disclosure: I was going to put a link to that movie here, but when I went to YouTube and found it, I was too scared]
I also love the idea of how time can fold in on itself which this story illustrates beautifully.
Tale Half Told was scary, but not too scary. So now I will no longer describe myself as a person who does not like ghost stories! Killarney and Margaret Traynor’s book has forever changed me!
Read a free chapter here: Free Chapter
Buy it here: Tale Half Told
Karen Creamer
