Jamie Jo Wright: The House on Foster Hill

By Kelly Bridgewater

Kaine Prescott is no stranger to death. When her husband died two years ago, her pleas for further investigation into his suspicious death fell on deaf ears. In desperate need of a fresh start, Kaine purchases an old house sight unseen in her grandfather's Wisconsin hometown. But one look at the eerie, abandoned house immediately leaves her questioning her rash decision. And when the house's dark history comes back with a vengeance, Kaine is forced to face the terrifying realization she has nowhere left to hide.

A century earlier, the house on Foster Hill holds nothing but painful memories for Ivy Thorpe. When an unidentified woman is found dead on the property, Ivy is compelled to discover her identity. Ivy's search leads her into dangerous waters and, even as she works together with a man from her past, can she unravel the mystery before any other lives--including her own--are lost?

From Amazon

My Thoughts:

I enjoy a good mystery. Especially a story that takes me for a ride with a number of twists and turn, throwing me for a loop around every corner. With The House on Foster Hill by author Jamie Jo Wright, I definitely received that. Her story kept me on my toes, which is what I like.

The story is a time-slip novel, which means the novel has a story set in the past and a story set in the present that are connected by something. In this instance, it is the house on Foster Hill. The writing is very descriptive. I had no problem picturing the house with its aging appearance and the abandoned eerie feeling. Wright draws me into the mystery surrounding the dead girl in the tree right away and leaves me mystified alongside Ivy.

The plot is definitely unique. I really enjoyed how Wright uses the house as another character in the story. Because of all the horror that happens in the house, Wright uses the outside appearance to capitalize on the turmoil raging through the characters. While the past story focuses in 1906, the present story takes place today. To be honest, when the story started, the plot moved really slow, and I had a hard time getting into the plot. There many internal dialogues and regrets from the past, but Wright wasn't really showing us any action to move the story along. About fifty-two percent into the story, it became really interesting, and the plot started to move a lot faster and more to my taste. I didn't put the book down and finished it in two hours. I enjoyed the last half of the book better than the first.

The characters were different. Kaine, a broken woman from San Diego, who is trying to move away from her past, but learns to find God in the process wasn't my favorite character of the two. I preferred Ivy, the protective and brave woman from 1906. She didn't take the murder of the woman in the tree sitting down. She was determined to find and uncover the secret of what happened to her. I really liked her.

The House on Foster Hill is an original story with an unpredictable ending. I didn't see the bad guy coming. I was glad. I liked to be surprised sometimes too. Since I didn't catch it, it makes me want to re-read the story and see if I could find the clues that somehow I missed.

Overall, The House on Foster Hill by Jamie Jo Wright is a unique time slip novel that centers around a timely issue that I didn't know occurred about in the early twentieth century. Wright delivers a fascinating cast of characters and a second half to the book that had me flying through the pages. I think fans of Rachel Hauck's time slip novels might enjoy this book, but if the suspense novel is more your taste, than fans of Lynette Eason and Carrie Stuart Parks might enjoy this novel too.

I received a complimentary copy of The House on Foster Hill by Jamie Jo Wright from Bethany House Publishers, but the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars