The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry

 I adore Christina Henry's takes on the 'fairy-tales' - especially her dark doozy of an interpretation of Alice in Wonderland, the Peter Pan stories and the last one, Girl in Red about the red riding hood. 

With The Ghost Tree, Christina takes a decidedly different approach to give us a creepy simmering tale of horror set in a sleepy small-town in the outskirts of Chicago. While it is a 'horror' story, it is also a story of coming-of-age, first loves, childhood friendships and the ties that define a family. It's a story that features witches, but not in any sense that you've probably seen or read before. 

Ghost Tree is actually a heart-warming tale of families trying to make ends meet, in this laid-back small town called Smiths Hollow - told from the point of view of a multitude of characters, all of them whom we feel we 'know' in an intimate manner. What makes Ghost Tree a winner, raising it notches above just a gore-fest horror story is the manner in which Christina builds up her characters, their intimate personal stories interwoven amongst each other. 

Lauren, a fourteen-year old teenager is our main protagonist. A kind, warm-hearted girl who has just lost her father in a horrific accident last year, is figuring out the complexities of growing up. For starters, her best friend Miranda no longer wants to play the girlie games in the woods - and is now interested in boys, and men. Her relationship with her mother Karen has been on rocky grounds and losing her father has made it worse. Her only bright spark in life is her younger brother David - a precocious four-year old who is wise beyond his years. And then she meets up Jake, a college boy who has come back home, to his parents' house in the Smiths Hollow. 

The novel actually starts with a horrific double murder in the woods - two young girls beheaded, and their heads dragged out of the woods. New cop in town Alex Sanchez has just moved down from the big Chicago city to try and have a more peaceful life out here in the sleepy suburbs. But this grisly set of murders has him dig up old records to find sinister secrets, unsolved mysteries about the town. And then we have the ambitious Mayor Touhy, who wants the best for his town and will go to any extent to keep the place prosperous. There are quite a few other side characters as well that Christina uses to bring the legend behind the Smiths Hollow town alive. 

It's very well paced, right from the start till the final reveals - and despite this being 400-plus pages, I sat down and raced through it in a couple of sittings. It has a nice Stephen King feel to it, with the small town characters and this horror that has the town in it's grip since time-immemorial. Christina throws in a nice backstory - that includes witches, a tragic love-story and a deadly curse. Frankly, while I do not really have any complaints the book, I definitely felt her older works were much better done compared to this little horror story. By the end of the book, while Lauren's fate was what I cared about, there was nothing much else that stuck to me. Even the horror elements were a bit muted. Yes - there is some blood and gore but for most parts, the book focuses on the characters and their little problems in this small town. 

Overall, a tidy little horror story set in a typical American small-town, expertly drawn out by Christina Henry with some well fleshed out characters. The Ghost Tree isn't anything special but it's definitely worth your time once - as you race through to get to uncover the secrets in this small town of Smiths Hollow.