Loved it!! I absolutely adore these books, with their quirky magic and lovable characters. There is way more psychology in these books than is usual for fantasy, and I know some people who are put off by it, but I love the way it is integrated in a magical world. I like that even the evil people are not completely evil, and that some of the good people are somewhat questionable. Mostly, I love the talking objects. The car! The house! The road! I like that one of the characters changes sex without it being a problem. I like that there are so many magical women and that they work together. I have to admit, I was sorry that the house was no longer a house in the end. She is cool as a human too, but she was such a nice house... In hindsight, the largest issue I have is the reaction of Julio's mother when she finds out what has happened to him. In all fairness, that seemed way too accepting to me. Ah, and maybe with Matt drinking the chocolate milk. That seemed like asking for trouble. But it didn't bother me too much while reading. Now I'm just sorry there is no sequel... ( )

It started out slow with disjointed stories, and then I figured out that it was a sequel to A Red Heart of Memories, which I actually did read, but can't remember much about. My feeling of lost memory haunted me through much of the reading, but then the story is about a haunted house and the people it's trying to gather together and the memories it feeds them, the magics it bestows. When a flashback is dreamed into the main character, it really gets interesting though the fantasy magic is over the top, it holds together. It feeds the fantasy of having a group of people who can find eachother again, years after the fact. I did like it. ( )

I actually read this back in 2003 - but had forgotten what happened so included it in my Hoffman reading streak - the review is pretty much the same - http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/185351-cindy

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Wow. This book is just - wow. I'm glad its over, but I'm very saddened by the ending.

This is very different from A Red Heart of Memories, more urban fantasy with a grand battle against dark forces than wandering witches trying to right their pasts. Edmund, Matt, Suki, Nathan, and House do find their missing friends, Julio and Deirdre, along with a set of twins who were cursed on the same night as Edmund, and demonic enemies who wish to consume their powers.

It was bizarre, sort of like an AU of the previous canon. Julio was kidnapped as a teenager by a mysterious wizard, who changed his form into eternal fire and somehow implanted another conscious being in his body. It was weird enough then, but it's even weirder now, in the present day. That left only Deirdre as the "normal" kid in the group, without any kind of magic. It frustrated and saddened her, and made her jealous of her lifelong friends. She ran from Guthrie just as hard and fast as the rest of them, but for different reasons entirely. She is very reluctant to return, even after the House summons her.

I wasn't sure what to make of Terry and Tasha, the twins. I didn't really like them, and as they were entirely new characters in this book, it didn't quite seem to fit. The "enemies" were the same; they felt half-formed and a bit tropey for trope's sake.

The romantic strands of the story were tiny but perfect; Nathan and Suki's first kiss was very sweet.

The end, though, boy, that was hard for me.

This book is so different from A Red Heart of Memories and A Stir of Bones that I have no idea if I'd recommend it. I guess it depends on how you felt about the first two - if you liked them, you probably won't like this; if you didn't, then you probably would. Apparently there are more short stories out there starring Matt, and maybe those help fill in some of her inconsistencies. I can't say I'm rushing out to read any of them; I wasn't really interested in her in the end. ( )

Most of my thoughts on this book have been included in my review of 'A Red Heart of Memory', which is the first book in the series.

Adults explore the reasons that their teenage selves hid in what turned out to be a haunted house. In a lightweight fantasy/supernatural escapist reading kind of way. ( )