Ok, so this one ends on a cliffhanger, so I won't spoil the ending or even get close to it in this review.
Originally, I'd hoped this one would come to my library in time for me to read and review it for October last year, in a double-review, but due to COVID, my library was a little on the slower end of getting in new books, and then there was a wait for it.
So I saved it for October this year, hoping the sequel would come in time to read and I could review them both. And it did!
And let me just say, I love this series for the way the author uses the kids' love of their parents as story motivations. It's not the norm in middle grade lit, where it's much more common to just remove parents altogether from the story, but I love the way she does it!
This one takes Ollie, Coco and Brian to the one place they think they'll be safe from the horrific shenanigans of the Smiling Man -- a lake.
Of course, you just know it's prime time for him to strike. The question is, how.
They go out on a boat trip, with parents in tow, like in the last book (Dead Voices, ski lodge vacation, remember?), only this time the parents are going to get roped into the Smiling Man's machinations as well.
Within moments, a fog sets in, something "bumps" the boat, the propeller drops to the bottom of the lake, the boat's taking on water and the captain… yeah, he gets eaten. By a huge water monster snake-like thing.
They make it to an island that isn't on the charts and lo and behold… the water monster can come on land, too. But that's not the only monster they have to contend with. There's a ghost of a pirate who's got some unfinished business with the water monster, and he'll happily put any future water monster victims out of their misery with his…axe.
How are the kids going to get out of this one? I won't ruin the ending. It's the set up for the sequel!
Enjoy this spine-tingly, water monster, piratical axe-wielding ghost story!
This is the last in the series, I think, and it’s all clown-terror, all the time.
I’ve never seen the movie IT, nor read King's book, nor am I particularly afraid of clowns, but I know it’s a horror trope and younger kids who are afraid of clowns will find this tale spine-tingling. It was certainly creepy.
Ollie’s deal to save her Dad and the other parents on the water (Dark Waters) lands her in a strange train car where she plays chess with the Smiling Man, night after night. Then the train stops in a town and she wakes in a castle of sorts, in a room the Smiling Man tells her she can leave during the day and eat all the cotton candy and funnel cakes she can get her hands on. But she’s not to leave the room at night or she will be hunted.
By what?
Evil clowns in a house of mirrors who’re out to turn Ollie into a midway game prize doll.
And for the first time in this series, it’s unclear whether the Smiling Man is the all-seeing, all-knowing villain we think he is, totally in control of this messed up carnival – or its prisoner and he’s simply managed to eke out a small, safe corner for Ollie, who he wants to keep as a pet.
Of course the carnival comes to the town where Coco, Brian, and latest edition to the “teens busting the Smiling Man’s chops” team, Phil, are spending the summer.
The Smiling Man’s deal with Ollie involves letting her friends try to save Ollie, but we all know he wants her for his own twisted games (chess too, apparently). He won’t let Ollie go that easily, not without putting all the teens to the ultimate scary tests.
And there’s the rogue, evil clowns lurking around every corner, in every shadow.
They don’t care which kids they seize and doll-ize.
This is a fitting final episode with the Smiling Man, although it’s always open for another paranormal adventure with the teens battling another villain. Enjoy!
