Phantasma

Phantasma by Kaylie Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow - what a way to end my year of books! This book had me completely hooked and I plowed through it in little over one day. It had all the things I wanted - paranormal mystery, romance, exciting twists, and smutty goodness. I am usually not one for historical stories (yuck to corsets and whatnot), but this book had me overlooking the time period because of the addictive story.

This book takes place in some sort of olden time, where cars are not common, women wear corsets, and showers are not a thing. It seems like the paranormal is commonplace here, but this takes place in New Orleans, so who knows. Ophelia and her sister have just lost her mother, and Ophelia is forced to take over her mother’s powers to continue the family line. She collects her mother’s locket, her powers, and, apparently, a ton of debts that will take their house away from them. It’s this, that her sister had kept secret from her, that send them into a fight that ends with some rash decisions. While their family drama is playing out, there is a roaming competition appearing. This game at Phantasma signs up contestants to compete for a devil’s favor. It’s this game that Ophelia ends up following her sister into.

As a necromancer, Ophelia may be uniquely qualified for this competition, because she’s already met one of the house’s haunts and ends up being approached by him again with a deal. After a night of horrors, mystery doors, and not knowing who to trust, her locket seems to be urging Ophelia to strike a bargain with the mysterious Blackwell. These two partner up (also in smutty ways) to navigate this hellscape (sort-of literally) and end up breaking some rules (like don’t fall for anyone in the house).

There’s a lot of secrets and near-death scenes all thrown at you one night after another, which had me rapidly flipping pages and on the edge of my seat. It felt like a fools bet to hope for a happy ending through all this gore and chaos, but I couldn’t help myself. Also, I didn’t realize this was part of a series, so figured I’d have to get some solid resolution at the end for a stand-alone read. Thankfully, that happens, though this is apparently one of a few in this series. While I figured out the mystery a bit earlier in the book, it was still great to watch it play out - even better than I imagined. Great read!

View all my reviews