The Ghosts of Thornwald Place

Fear, isolation, confinement and not wanting to confront or deal with her neighbors, Kae lives in Thornwald Place a magnificent building with everything you want except her freedom. Escaping her past, her life and her friends she lives within the walls of this building where she volunteers for a distress line service. Never venturing outside for nine months as phone call in the middle of the might causes her to react and leave. The caller claims she knows who she is and can find her/ Kae wants to leave the building but her the person who captures her finds her in the elevator and slits her throat. Her body and soul are trapped there but for how long. Leaving the elevator is impossible as she is trapped within her own self and is now a ghost that floats freely within the buildings and the home is the elevator. Kae floats around and wants to learn who killed her as she observes the police doing their job and then learns more about the residents in this building. Her life is now controlled by the elevator that is her guide to the present as it draws her nearer to each floor and the person that lives there. Her murder is investigated, and she overhears a husband and wife talking as she made a great dinner, and he claims a business meeting, but he is having an affair with a young man on the second. Floor. A pregnant plan is living with an abusive husband, and a woman keeping her husband in an induced coma because he threatened to take away their son. We observe as she does a man who employees looking into apartments across the street with his telescope and a teenage who has interest in the after living and the devil and she is trying to control the medium in the building to help her talk to her relatives that have passed. Her best friend Catalina has moved into her building and is trying to figure out who murdered her best friends and her brother-in-law moved into her apartment and haunts her as he looks like her dead husband and is going through her stuff. The elevator has the power to control her destiny in death as she gets taken too many to each floor, enters the lives of the residents that she never communicated with and unveils secrets, lies, betrayals and deceptions and in some cases dangerous situations which she wishes she could help but can’t. The author shares Kae’s diary where we get to know Cher life and her fears living in a house she and Jay bought which is haunted as if her past living in that house reflects and mirrors her haunting her building in the present.

Its two worlds that are colliding: The present in her ethereal or ghostly form hovering over man tenants in the building and learning their stories, and her own journey living in the house which she claims and shares that was haunted.

Catalina checks her expression and inspects the walls plastered with pictures that Will has hung up. A picture of the gothic boy Clark, the concierge , Elias and roger returning form his affair with the young man. The woman with NO Past siting in the shadows and presenting to create dinner for her and two others. Lost in her own world, the Man in Tweed coming home Alexi the psychic and then we witness the seance. Catalina checks out more with Saybrna;s beaming game Dr, Sylvie Favreau a somber face , a candid picture of Clark and more. Added in Melody and Oliver who is abusive will she really leave, and does she know that Rachel is there?

Each character has something to hide and Catalina teams up with Will to investigate her death, but the police want her out and she winds up as Will’s guest. The author shares more information about Jay, who seems to be losing his mind and more forgetful until the final diary entry that relates his death. The dog, Lon Chaney Jr. is kidnapped and finally found, the house is filled with flies and things fall apart fast. In the present she spies on the Man in the Tweed Suit, and we learn who the woman is that he is looking at through his telescope. Clark and his friends are into some type of cult literature, Melody wants to escape Oliver before he kills her unborn child. The elevator takes her to each floor, and she even overhears Alexi when he visits Melody and her husband. The webs of deception are thick and the answers to her murder are coming but slowly. Who wanted her gone and why? As she enters each apartment she can get a handle on the residents and the secrets come out. Clark is an odd teen who is into the cult , Sherman and Eloise have a strange marriage. The police and Catalina question each neighbor works with Will, Jay’s brother to find out who killed Rachel but is there an underlying factor we are missing? Added in she visits the apartment of the Man in the Tweed Suit who is looking across the way through his window at a woman in another building. Why? Lives are all intermingled and yet we have a sense of fear within each resident. The police demand that Catalina leaves but Will takes her in as his guest why? Plus, we get more about some of the women that knew Rachel and one that she tried to befriend. The diary allows us to intertwine her life in her new house that turned out to be haunted as well as her in the present where you might say she is haunting. The séance scene revealed how she wanted to be able to speak to some of the resident’s, Melody needs to leave Oliver but before all is said and done will there be another murder? Lives are shattered and each person feels alone. Sabryna is alone sitting by candlelight and what she does in the end is tragic. Sylvie is trying to help Etienne deal with his father and tells the wife she can only do so much as well as telling Clark’s mother to bring him to the hospital. Witnessing the ritual and what each member did the result would have taken a life. Luke wanted to care for Rachel, and you get the feeling that there is much more to him than is revealed.

Luke confesses to murdering Rachel and the police feel that he is the right suspect. Telling his story, how he played havoc with the mind of her husband and her, making it seem that their house was haunted, the reason is terrifying.

Visiting each apartment on each floor by chapter, she becomes immersed in the lives of each resident. But being able to connect with Alexi and the real world helps her to discover and uncover what might have happened to Melody, Oliver, and the Elias. The Woman with no Past, her husband and their son disappeared, Sabyrna walked into the light. Where is melody, Etienne asked her for help because he could not with her to walk into the light. Plus, we learn more about Luke and why he was arrested, and will what be his real purpose for being there? She was optimistic for Alexei but never followed through with anything. Melody disappeared but you won’t believe what she created in the minds of the police. Elias is not what you think he is and spends his nights using his pass key to enter apartments and observe women sleeping and taking their pictures. Wait until you see what he has all over his walls. Oliver was he murdered? Will what be his fate? Elias what was his motive for what he did. Why did the residents hope that they had been one of those he visited in the dark? It was a violation why would they want to be chosen? What about Raymond will he wake up? What about his wife and the spirit of the woman with no past? The ending is starling, and each resident might be rich but within themselves and their stories on each floor there is despair, sadness, hopelessness and no joy. Will Rachel find her peace, or will she remain floating forever in the elevator? Each character is flawed some with saving graces most not. In the end will they all eventually become Ghosts of Thornwald Place. Author Helen Power gives us a novel that focuses on despair, need for love, family loyalties that are broken, deceptions and the true meaning of why money does not buy happiness.

Fran Lewis: Just reviews