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A Match Made in Hell by Terri Garey

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This evening, I finally finished reading A Match Made In Hell by Terri Garey, featuring protagonist Nicki Styx, who can communicate with the dead. It took me over two weeks to read because A) Shark Week, and B) I couldn't get into it. Tonight, however, storms kept me offline and knocked out the satellite, so all I could do was read.

Nicki is just getting her life on track after a near-death experience left her with the ability to communicate with spirits, when the ghost of a woman comes to her, begging Nicki to help her daughter. The spirit leads Nicki to the scene of a car accident, where a young woman hovers near death. Turns out that it's Nicki's long-lost twin sister, Kelly, and the ghost was their birth mother, Peaches.

Now Nicki is thrown for a loop again. Not only has she never met Kelly before, but her sister is still technically married to Nicki's new boyfriend, Joe. As Kelly recovers, Nicki is visited by an elderly woman, claiming to be their grandmother, who invites them to Savannah. Kelly is keen to go, and Nicki reluctantly accompanies her, along with Joe. Peaches has reappeared to her, warning Nicki that the twins will be visited by a man who will lie to them and bring great danger, and Nicki is not going to let Kelly face it alone.

Upon arriving in Savannah, however, they learn their grandmother has also passed recently. The staff left behind at the family home won't reveal any information, insisting that Nicki and Kelly will learn things on their own, assuming they have "the knack"--the family gift of psychic abilities. To shorten a long review, they encounter new people, new spirits, and the devil himself, and it's up to the sisters to stand together to save themselves and one another.

Sigh

It sounds interesting, and I suppose it was, but to me it felt less like reading a book and more like watching a soap opera. You had the long-lost twin, who's still married to the current boyfriend, long-lost family members, who may not be as lost as they seem, an evil spirit who tries to drive a wedge between Nicki and Kelly, as well as between Nicki and Joe, the devil, who wants Nicki but will settle for Kelly, and Kelly, who is acting like a rebellious teen, in that each time Nicki tries to warn her about impending doom just sneaks off to try to call spirits up on her own, resulting in one disaster after another. I wanted to punch her in the face, myself. Stupid bitch.

Favorite line: "I've got too many things to confess, some of which I haven't even done yet."

The story did not draw me in at all. I spent the entire time being too annoyed with most of the characters and their ridiculous behavior to enjoy it. I know I have at least one more book in this series on my shelf, and if it doesn't get any better than this, it will be the last one in this series that I read.

Two stars:

**