Ghost Flower by Michele Jaffe

Ghost Flower

by Michele Jaffe

Eve, a runaway, finds a new job at a coffee shop on the outskirts of Tuscon. When she's approached by two wealthy teens who claim she bears an uncanny resemblance to their missing cousin Aurora, her life takes a turn for the dark and mysterious. Drawn into a scheme to win Aurora's inheritance, Eve finds herself impersonating the girl, who disappeared three years ago on the night her best friend Elizabeth died. But when Liza's ghost begins to haunt Eve, doing harm to the people close to her under the guise of "protecting" her, Eve finds herself in a nightmare maze of lies and deception that leads her to question even her own identity. She realizes her only chance is to uncover the truth about what happened the night Liza died, and to find Liza's killer - before she's next.

This teen thriller by Michele Jaffe will keep readers turning pages well into the night.

(summary from goodreads.com)

 

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A good mystery, a fantastic twist, a great ending. This style of mystery reminded me of those old Christopher Pike books I wasn't allowed to read in junior high. (Hmm, obviously I must have ignored that ban if this book reminds me of them.) The "whodunit" is very Agatha Christie like - completely unexpected. I read almost 20 Christie's before I was able to guess who the killer was. Mystery writers, take note - if you want the ending to be a surprise, don't continually hit your reader over the head with hints and obvious foreshadowing and such. I like writers, especially mystery writers, who don't automatically assume I'm an idiot.

My main problem with this book was that it was SO FAMILIAR. The plot line is almost identical to the last Jaffe I read, Rosebush. Eerily similar. (Okay, maybe it's not EERIE, seeing as it's the same author.) Girl has traumatic event, girl forgets all details about traumatic event, girl knows someone is trying to kill her but doesn't know who it is, killer is a completely unexpected psycho with control issues and uses a bamboozled sidekick to do most of her/his (no spoilers!) dirty work, killer uses psychological means (secret admirer in one, ghost in another) to completely freakout the girl, girl has serious boy issues, girl's memory comes back, beautiful boy the girl has no previous history with appears partway through the book and in the end saves girl's life and becomes an instalove (okay, slight spoiler). And there you have both books. And that's not even all - the more I thought, the more similarities I found. Of course there were differences in how the plot presented itself, and in Ghost Flower the twist at the end was fabulous, but still. I need to read goodreads comments to see if anyone else noticed the similarities. Surely it wasn't just me?

Mom note: As a mother of readers, I also want to make a note to myself (and others if they care) why I would or would not have my children read this book, because honestly, sometimes I forget. This is a YA book, so everything is within YA strictures. Violence: moderate; Profanity: moderate; Sex: innuendo, attempted rape