The Promise of Lost Things

By: Helene Dunbar

Narrated by: Mark Sanderlin, Chelsea Stephens, Alex Boyles

Three characters with their own agendas converge in a town filled with mediums, where most residents make their living speaking to the dead … and there’s no such thing as resting in peace.

Russ Griffin has always wanted to be a fantastic medium. Growing up in the town of St. Hilaire, where most residents make their living by speaking to the dead, means there’s a lot of competition, and he’s always held his own. But Russ knows the town he loves is corrupt, and he’s determined to save it before the sinister ruling body, The Guild, ruins all he’s ever wanted.

Willow Rogers is St. Hilaire royalty. An orphan, raised by The Guild, she’s powerful and mysterious. But she has secrets that might change everyone’s fate. She’s done with St. Hilaire, done with helping spirits move on. She wants to end the cycle for good and rid the town of ghosts, even if that means destroying the only home she’s ever known.

Asher Mullen lost his sister, and his parents can’t get over her death. They sought answers in St. Hilaire and were turned away. Now they want revenge. Asher is tasked with infiltrating the town, and he does that by getting to know Russ. The only problem is he might be falling for him, which will make betraying him that much harder.

Russ, Willow, and Asher all have their own agendas for St. Hilaire, but one thing’s for certain: no one will be resting in peace.

©2022 Helene Dunbar (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Not great, not bad - perhaps a good start?

I'm torn on this review. It was neither great nor bad, which makes writing a review difficult.

I liked the premise - a town filled with mediums who talk to ghosts and the people who intend to bring the town down. Unfortunately, the romance part took away from the overall story. There was so many plot holes within the story that the author filled with the romance between Russ and Asher. For instance, Iain and Russ's focus on taking down the Guild was a shocker when it was first brought up - because Russ was pretty much pro-Guild until it was mentioned. And yet, they'd been working on this for a year, supposedly. It had major promise as a plot on its own, but after that shocker, was barely focused upon.

Russ had an important job being head of the seniors, but we only hear about him complaining about paperwork once or twice, we never see what he does in that position.

I'm getting a bit tired of this new focus in YA novels of the protagonist being into drugs - and Russ's drugs are beyond a first time druggie. People don't lurch to inserting drugs into their veins before starting with smaller stuff. But apparently he did.

I won't name all the problems, but the ending of the book was both intriguing--because how the author got rid of the two antagonists was not what I expected, and a let down. because it felt like the story had been built up to the climax (though admittedly not as fully as it could have because of the romance focus) and then it fell flat during what should have been the most exciting part of the book. How Iain appeared at the end felt odd. Maybe because there wasn't a lot of response to his words? Not even from the Mullens. Not to mention how he ended. That was disappointing because he would have been a great additional character constantly popping back in and annoying Russ from time to time, if there are more in the future. Willow's reveal about Rick felt contrived because it came out of nowhere and had NOTHING to do with the rest of the story.

But mainly, the antagonists were gone. GONE. And they were both important members of the Guild. And yet, we don't see the Guild's reactions to what Russ would tell them (because he would have been the only person to tell them what happened and there's no history of us seeing that a bunch of Guild adults would trust a 17 year old boy).

There's also the HUGE plot hole involving Russ's mother. A bomb was dropped and then pretty much not brought up again. I understand the author used that bomb as a way to make the MC overdose, but still. That was too huge of an emotional slam for such a small amount of the story it ate up.

There are many more plot points that did not get completed, or were brought up and then dropped. I've never heard of this author, so it's possible this is their first book and they simply need more experience and a better developmental editor.

If there's a second book, I will be interested in reading it, as I do think St Hillaire has huge possibilities in storylines, but the author needs to decide what's the most important instead of barely focusing on two different main plot arcs and not doing either well.

The narrations weren't bad. The narrator for Russ did voices better than the narrator for Asher. Willow's narrator did fine, though she did tend to slur her words form time to time. I'm not sure we needed Willow's POV. The climax might have been better if we'd had the big reveals then instead of learning her plans throughout.

In fact, now that I think about it, this book would have been better if the entire story had been told from Russ's POV. We didn't really need Asher's or WIllow's and the storyline might have had less plot holes.