Hey there, Readers! Welcome back! With summer vacation right there on the horizon, it’s time to spruce up those must-read lists in preparation for long, warm afternoons with a good book or seven.
And The Ties that Bind is a good one for that kind of afternoon. A warm, fun story that will make you ugly-cry and…
Wait a second! Let me explain!
This is a story about loss and finding loved ones in unexpected places. It’s a very sweet tale centered around a young girl who’s lost her Father, is losing her Mother in a completely different way and has been sent to live with older relatives for the summer. Emotionally charged circumstances to be sure, but made even more so when the supernatural starts to encroach…
So! Grab a cup of tea and a cookie or two (Keep track of how many!) and join me as we take a look through the small door in back of the closet…
Book Stats
- Author: Robert J. Halliwell.
Formats: Paperback, Hardcover, Kindle, Audiobook.
Price: $12.99 for Paperback, $19.99 for Hardcover, $4.99 for Kindle, and $17.46 for Audible, or one Credit on Audible.
Length: 345 pages, or 7 hours 20 minutes in audio format.
Narrator: Tawny Platis
Number of books in the series: It’s a standalone work and, so far as I can tell, the author’s debut novel!
Basic Premise
We meet Zoey as she’s in the car on the way to her great aunt and uncle’s house. It’s a long drive, crossing several states and leaving behind everything she’d previously known. Even Great Aunt Carol is basically a stranger to Zoey, despite being blood.
Carol is fond of colorful head scarves, crystals and general new-age stuff. Shes stocked Zoey’s new room with a bunch of new-age self help books. Uncle Will is a lot more straight laced and stern. (Kind of a Dharma and Greg situation.) Before she’s even unpacked, he lays down the law in regards to bed time, chores and rules around leaving the house and making friends. Not exactly the gentle approach! Zoey, determined to prove any negative preconceptions he might have about her wrong, takes this all in stride.
Despite being told she must be in bed no later than 11 and must stay there, Zoey suffers from insomnia. (Been there, kiddo. It’s no fun.) She gets up to look around just a little and grab herself a glass of water. While snagging a little hydration, she notices that Great Aunt Carol is up. They sit and chat; Carol is a lot more permissive and kind seeming than her husband. They share chamomile tea and cookies and then Carol asks her if she’s noticed anything strange about the house yet.
Zoey has not… but now she’s wondering what’s going on. She also finds it strange that, while she can have as many cookies as she wants, she must keep track of how many exactly. (The end of my pre-amble makes a bit more sense now, right?)
The next day, Zoey does, in fact, run into a little strangeness. The TV turning on by itself for example. (It’s old! Probably just on the fritz.) And, oddly enough, some cookies DO go missing. Which is certainly weird because do ghosts even eat cookies? Carol assures her it’s not critters stealing them, either. They hold a seance but it doesn’t bear fruit.
Things really kick off when Zoey wakes from a dream and feels something weighty and warm at her feet. Once noticed though, it disappears and seems to make a bee-line through the closet door. Zoey screams, waking and summoning her great aunt and uncle. (Uncle Will runs into the room strapped and ready for action which unnerves Zoey about as much as the phantom presence on her bed!)
The next morning, with the safety of daylight on her side, she decides to investigate the closet. There’s nowhere anything could really GO if it ran in there except a little door right down near the floor. Access to the crawl space, maybe? Summoning her courage, she opens it to look inside… and her world is never the same afterward.
How so? You need to read it to fund out!
My Take
So, usually I snag books based on the author or the genre or subject matter. Not so this time as it was actually the narrator who drew my attention. (Which, just to be entirely clear is in no way a slight on Robert J. Halliwell’s authorial talents! I loved this book and am looking forward to more!) Tawny Platis is a professional voice actor who i found on YouTube via her “Here’s what your favorite cartoon says about you!” shorts. They are eerily accurate and always funny. Check ’em out – see if I’m not right. Anyway, I also enjoy her insights on voice acting, which I’ve done a little of myself in a super informal capacity. When she recently posted talking about how much she loved working on this book, I absolutely had to check it out.
Throughout most of the story, I wanted to give Zoey the warmest hug I could muster. (I wouldn’t. I don’t think she’d appreciate it. What teenager would? But y’know. It’s the thought that counts.) After the loss of her dad, mom just kind of checks out and falls apart leaving Zoey in the unenviable position of figuring out life for herself. She’s a pre-teen when it starts and fourteen when our story picks up so she’s been dealing with this for years. There’s no time to properly mourn or deal with your feelings when you’re busy being the adult your parent can’t be. Throw in an erratic sleep schedule and the pressures of middle school and yeah… she yells out a few teachers and skips class a lot. This gets her branded as ‘messed up’ or somehow delinquent, leading to the strained relationship she has with her Uncle Will to begin with. (He immediately assumes drugs or alcohol might be involved) But underneath the labels she’s just a good kid who’s hurting and lonely.
I don’t want to spoil too much but there’s a moment of catharsis and release in there that had me struggling (And mostly failing!) to keep it together. Anyone who’s lost a loved one too soon will be able to empathize immediately.
One kind of funny thing is the initial similarity between the situation of The Ties that Bind and Russell Isler’s Magical Girl Blues. A teenage girl who’s lost her parents in a car accident moves far away to live with her great aunt in a big Victorian home with a turret. She then discovers that the world she lives in contains supernatural elements. It’s not a 1 to 1 comparison but still! I enjoyed seeing how similar ideas could lead to two very different overall stories! Stuff like that always fascinates me so I hope no-one minds me pointing it out!
The narrator, Tawny Platis, does awesome work keeping every character sounding distinct and fun. Aunt Carol sounds a lot like Jennifer Coolidge, which is great! Zoey’s voice kind of reminds me of Loona from Helluva Boss. There’s a younger child in there as well and she sounds extremely believable and never annoying which can be an issue when adults voice kids, I find. Not even remotely an issue here.
All In all, this is a great story for anyone who loves tales about found family, stories about the process of overcoming loss and stories that are supernatural in a gentle and believable sense. Also for readers who are looking for a good young adult novel with no romance but a lot of heart.
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