Book 51, 2020

[chez_jae]

The Ghosts of Kali Oka Road by M.L. Bullock

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I finished reading The Ghosts of Kali Oka Road last night. It's the first installment in the "Gulf Coast Paranormal" series by ML Bullock. I suppose the genre would be 'supernatural suspense'? There's no single main character; rather the story centered around the paranormal investigation team of Midas, Sierra, Josh, Sara, and Peter, along with the gift artist they meet, Cassidy.

Kali Oka Road and the old Oak Grove Plantation have long been rumored to be haunted. No one knows that better than Ranger Shaw. The story begins in the past, when a teenage Ranger takes his girlfriend, Melissa, to Kali Oka Road. They get into an argument, Melissa storms off, and Ranger never sees her again...at least, he never sees her in one piece again.

Now in present day, Cassidy awakens from an odd dream and feels compelled to paint what she saw. Her strange vision leads her to the GCP team, where they are about to embark on an investigation of Kali Oka Road, at the request of Ranger Shaw, who has terminal cancer. He wants to know what happened to Melissa before he dies. Armed with research, equipment, and Cassidy's visions, the team begins to unravel the mystery of Kali Oka Road.

This was creepy and fast paced and fun. I was reluctant to put it aside, although I managed it. The story did switch povs, from Ranger's third-person pov to first-person pov from either Cassidy or Midas' perspective. As a result, I got a good feel for Cassidy and Midas, more so than the rest of the characters. I thoroughly enjoyed this story, but...


- The ending was quite anticlimactic. I was gearing up for a frightening finish, but it just sort of ended.
- There were so many things left unanswered! What really happened to Melissa? We know she died, but why was her body never found? Why wasn't her head? When the hell did Beau do what he did? What became of Aurelia and the baby? How about Hattie? Since Hattie should have died some time in the past, why was her avatar still terrorizing people in the present? Why did it choose to pick on Melissa and Ranger?
- I'm going on record as saying I don't like having two characters with such similar names: Sara and Sierra. It was a tad confusing.

Favorite line: This had been a strange day. Why not finish it with a bang?

I really did love this story, in spite of the things I found vexing. I have several more of these books on my Kindle, and I'm looking forward to reading them. I would have given this five stars, but the aggravations knock one off the score.