Texas Gothic By Rosemary-Clement More[/caption]Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
What do you get when you cross Nancy Drew with Practical Magic? Apparently the answer is hidden behind the cover of Texas Gothic.
First of all, I have to assume magic is real since there had to be some sort of hocus pocus going on to allow this book to be published with a name like Texas Gothic. The “Texas” part makes sense since it takes place somewhere outside of Austin, but “gothic?”
Without reading the description, I would’ve pictured the homely, plain farmers depicted in the Grant Wood painting or emo kids from the 90s. Or, maybe, homely farmer goth kids from the 90s. I even looked up “gothic” assuming the author had some greater meaning or understanding of the word. If so, I couldn’t find it.
More appropriate titles would be like The Mystery of the Mad Monk or Witches vs. Cowboys (not really, but still an improvement).
But the fact it was a great book puts me in a forgiving mood and I’ll let the title slide – now that I’ve ranted about it.
Sisters Amy and Phin Goodnight are housesitting for their grandmother, taking care of her organic farm (along with some organic pain-in-the-ass goats) while she’s on vacation. The sisters come from a family of witches. Not like the broom-flying and spell-casting kind or the Wiccan pentagram wearing emo kids, but the kind new-age-type hippie herbalists that harness the power of nature to influence reality. Depending on who you ask, it’s not that far from the realm of possibility.
Each of the sisters deals with their family craft in a different way. Phin is the scientist. She spends her time working on gadgets that document and measure paranormal phenomenon and energy. Amy spends her time running a PR campaign to make her family at least appear normal to the outside world. Unfortunately for Amy, they’ve stepped into a situation that won’t let them just blend in.
In the tiny town where everybody knows everybody (and everyone knows their grandmother), something is attacking ranch hands on the McCulough farm that surrounds the Goodnight property. The assaults increased since construction workers unearthed bones building a bridge on the McCulough land and the locals gossip the assailant is a ghost legend known as the Mad Monk.
As the story unfolds like a Nancy Drew-like mystery novel – a throwback to my childhood – full of suspicious characters and clues that didn’t quite add up, Amy begins to realize the Mad Monk may be the least of their problems.
Although my first suspicions about the villain (or villains) in this story turned out to be correct, the road to get there was full of surprises and kept me second guessing myself. Being a longer-ish YA book, it had more opportunities to build excitement through several smaller climactic events leading to the finale (which was a little anti-climactic, but served its purpose). There were a few small holes in the plot – mostly things that didn’t get explained well – but they weren’t major and I actually didn’t even notice until I finished reading and was thinking about the book later.
The tension between Amy and hot cowboy neighbor, the Ben McCulough, was viciously sexy. Unlike most romantic plotlines in books of this genre, Amy didn’t throw herself at bad-boy Ben because there was something “mysterious” about him and she had to figure it out (the YA version of dating a guy thinking you can fix him). She prettymuch thought he was a jack@$$ -- despite him helping her wrangle up her grandmother’s renegade goats when she ran out of the house in only her underwear and a pair of rubber boots. And he seemed to have similar feelings about her throughout their various run-ins (mostly when she was trespassing on his property). Basically, it came down to why don’t you just KISS ALREADY!
I enjoyed Amy and the rest of the characters, but Phin had to be my favorite. She provided much of the comic relief – unknowingly at her own expense – through her dense, socially-awkward personality and way of taking everything literally. Much to the embarrassment (and frustration) of her sister.
Texas Gothic was a fun, easy read and was an excellent example of a YA mystery novel...if people skip past the title.
Recommended For: Anyone who grew up on Nancy Drew books.
[...] can’t believe it took me so long to find this series, especially since I read and loved Texas Gothic last summer, especially since Prom Dates From Hell was actually Clement-Moore’s [...]
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