Sparrow Hill Road (Ghost Roads)

This book is an interesting read. It feels almost like a series of short stories that all happen to be about the same character written at different times and later strung together. That's not to say it's bad, just different. I actually very much enjoyed it and look forward to more in the future.

A wonderfully inventive take on the urban legend. I loved the ideal of the road exsisting in the afterlife. The attitude of the main character was consistent with other seanna mcguire characters. A excellent read overall.

For a person of a certain disposition, this is the closest to Truth (yes, capital intended) that you can get. Thank you, Ms. McGuire. My (living, don't worry) road trip will begin soon. The author has given me hope against all odds.

Seaman McGuire makes you care, really care about the fate of someone who's already dead. As we travel through many adventures with our heroin, the complex worlds and inhabitants of the dead are fleshed out. Throughout all, there is suspense building up to the climax. I sure hope that a sequel is in the works!

I really like Seanan McGuire's "Rosemary and Rue" and subsequent series, so I was REALLY looking forward to this book. But I was pretty let down across the board. The writing style is still strong, but it's depressing how utterly cynical the main character is. There's no real hope for life in general given until maybe the last chapter? Maybe. I also found the ending lame, and the story itself comprised of too many meaningless, choppy stories. I won't be buying any more of this series, but will instead continue to happily devour her October Daye novels. :-)

While the first few chapters was interesting, the book kept jumping around in its timeline and started to seem pointless... I stopped reading it after the third time it jumped timelines... It could have been a good read if the author had kept it chronological... Otherwise it didn't hold my interest past the 4th time jump. If I'd have wanted something along that line, I would have watched a Quentin Terrentino (sp??) movie

Sparrow Hill Road was absolutely fascinating.

One of the most ubiquitous shared experiences, that can be seen not just throughout the country but across the world, is the telling and reshaping of ghost stories.

Seanan McGuire takes this premise of the traditional campfire ghost story and turns it into a full novel. But she does it in a very unique way. The story reads as a hodgepodge of different stories throughout the ghost Rose Marshall death, showing her obligations, her adventures, her sorrows, and really developing a character that would normally be left to the shadows of a story. Further, McGuire does all of this in a nonlinear fashion. While jumping between the decades may seem off and disjointed, it is fitting for the character and tone of the book. Further, while the story is being told in disjointed snippets the development is not, throughout each story readers will get a better sense of Rose and who she really is.

As usual McGuire’s talent for writing comical situations and strong protagonists shines through in this book. Readers will not be disappointed with Rose, and now that she has been introduced I look forward to hearing more from her in McGuire’s InCryptid series. All in all a fun read.

[...]

Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire is the first book of the paranormal fantasy Ghost Roads series. This series was originally released back in May of 2014 but is now being re-published. It centers around the stories of a ghost of a sixteen year old girl who many have claimed to have contact with over the years.

Rose Marshall was a typical sixteen year old back in 1952 and only wanted to head to her prom the night that she died in Buckley Township, Michigan. Rose had been run off the road causing a horrible accident by a man named Bobby Cross who was using the souls of his unfortunate victims to stay young forever.

For sixty years now Rose has been on the move hitchhiking around and coming in contact with many travelers most of which come to their own unfortunate ends. Rose often finds herself still having to run from Bobby Cross from time to time as he still travels around staying forever young.

Sparrow Hill Road was a rather creative read overall covering many different times over Rose’s sixty years of being a ghosts. The author has come up with a whole host of different types of ghosts and a very intricate afterlife to tell Rose’s story. There were times though that it could be a tad confusing jumping from one town/time period and then quickly to something else only to return back again and so forth. But in the end the creativity of the story won me over and I decided to give this one 3.5 stars.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Who does not love a good ghost story? Sparrow Hill Road it is such a great ghost story because it is not linear this story goes back and forth between decades to capture Rose’s story.

That is the beauty of this novel, the fact that the story is not linear and focuses on Rose’s journey. It is captivating how the story breaks the fourth wall to tell the story. She addresses the reader, giving the reader a sense of what she is about to experience, allowing the tension to build, to explore the narrative and the impact of the scene. Rose has not had a comfortable afterlife, filled with running, car crashes, and haunting the roadside. Each chapter is so different from the previous, but the story maintains fluidity.

Each passage has power, cultivating this incredible character. Moreover, her journey is unique. It is impeccable writing and storytelling, to create such a beautiful and compelling story, and not the typical ghost story either. When stories tend to shift back and forth following a nonlinear pathway the reader can get lost. However, none of that happens here because each section is just its own story but just a smaller part of a whole. That is what makes it so great and why writing is compelling because each story, each section, is supposed to be a powerful moment in this character’s life. Each scene has a powerful message to convey to the reader that tells more than tells the reader about roses story and his history, but it also gives insight into who roses as a person.

However, enough about just the storytelling which is impressive, but it is also the characterization. Rose is such a believable character. For a dead girl, she has such vitality and spunk which makes her amazing. Life dealt her a tough hand, but instead of being resentful, she has hope, she has an edge to her that keeps her alive. Rose is a great character to follow, to see her emotions leap off the page to make this novel spark, chapter after chapter. There’s hope, which is excellent. The novel is following a dead girl, a girl who was driven off the road on her prom night, and yet the hope is not lost in the narrative. Rose is a strong character who wants revenge but doesn’t let it blinds her. She wants to end Bobby Cross, the man who lives from taking lives from innocent people who are unluckily enough to cross his path. However, she retains her strength; she is smart, she is resourceful, bright, and spunky. Everything makes her breathtaking; they make her come to life and give a new side to the typical ghost story.

All in all, there’s a vibrant cast of characters in the novel, various ghosts, fun adventures and a heartwarming story. It is a great way to start a series giving depth and realism to a ghostly world.

Rose Marshall is sixteen and running from the man who ran her off the road. She’s been sixteen and on the run since prom night. Since she’d made a rash decision while angry. Since 1952 when she took the keys to her brother’s car and the short cut on Sparrow Hill Road to look for her boyfriend. Bobby Cross is still hunting her, trying to catch the one that got away and feed his immortality a little longer. He won’t stop until he catches up to her. But at least he can’t kill someone who’s already dead.

Seanan McGuire’s Sparrow Hill Road is interesting to me in a lot of ways. It started out as a set of twelve short stories published across a year. Those stories were well received enough to be reworked a little and republished as a novel. That, to me, is all kinds of awesome. Then you jump into Sparrow Hill Road being a ghost’s story rather than a ghost story. It’s Rose’s story to tell and she’s well aware of a lot of the folk lore surrounding her and those like her. I actually have a little trouble talking about this one because of how much I enjoyed it.

This isn’t a settled book by any means. It roams from decade to decade and coast to coast, from living to dead and back again. The characters likewise never seem to settle. Weather that means the phantom driver who spends his afterlife racing the road he died on or the route witches whose magic is called from driving and the road itself. Pauses are brief and stopping or being stopped always seems to carry a risk. That doesn’t mean that the book moves at a breakneck pace throughout its run, Ms. McGuire does a fantastic job with her pacing here. It never felt like I needed to pause and reread something to understand what was going on. It also never felt like the book was dragged down by over explaining things.

Rose’s ability to borrow life from a willingly offered piece of outer ware is fascinating to me, likewise the rule that she can enjoy food and drink only if it’s willingly offered by a living being. Both serve to allow her to, temporarily at least, experience the parts of living that she’d enjoyed and interact with normal people as though she were one of them. It also serves to limit Rose. She can only borrow life until the sun comes up so she’s a ghost, cold and insubstantial, during the day and any food she eats that isn’t willingly offered tastes of ash. The aspect of Rose having chosen to guide the dead is also an interesting one. It isn’t something she’s bound to, at least not beyond feeling a sort of responsibility for the newly dead. It’s something she doesn’t always want to do and, in fact, something of a mirror to her habit of trying to help drivers avoid their deaths. Of course, both of those choices lead to her being seen around horrific traffic accidents and being blamed as a result.

That feels like sort of a running thing through the book, people act without knowing the full story. It happens with Rose, with the story of the pretty dead girl up on Sparrow Hill Road and all the people she’s supposedly killed. It happens with a number of the characters introduced within each section of the book, they react to the bits they know but act before digging further. They jump to conclusions while angry or confused and go based on their impressions. It’s a sort of humanizing thing that allows for a lot of the conflict in the book without it feeling like it was just thrown in.

Speaking of conflict, if there’s a bit that didn’t entirely work for me it winds up being Bobby Cross himself. This goes back to Sparrow Hill Road having originally been a set of short stories. Bobby Cross feels like a week antagonist, largely because he doesn’t have much to do early on. He’s the one who killed Rose. He wants to finish the job. Not has to, wants to. But for a lot of the book’s run it doesn’t feel like he’s a threat. The antagonists from other sections tend to be more present, likely because that’s their moment while Bobby is running a long game. When he’s effective, he’s great but when he’s not he just sort of feels like a disposable villain of the week.

I started writing this review knowing that I was going to give it a five out of five. I enjoyed it enough to not really know how to write about it without just throwing words for pages on end. Even now there are bits that I want to go back and add more thoughts on. I think I’ve come to a decent place to end this though. Sparrow Hill Road is well worth the read and I’m super excited for the next one.

I was sent a copy of this for review through netGalley

ARC from the publisher

Sparrow Hill Road was a book that took me by surprise. I had no expectations going in, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. This is the story of Rose Marshall, a girl who was killed at 16 when a young man makes a deal with (essentially) the devil, for eternal youth. And poor Rose is a casualty. This book has Rose sharing her stories of her life after death as a hitchhiking ghost, and what’s interesting is that Rose’s stories (we get a lot of them in this book) usually consist of two timelines – one from the past, and one from the ‘present’ she’s in when she’s relaying the story. Parts of this were sad, parts were hopeful, and I liked how Rose’s character was sometimes unpredictable. It was shocking to me, as a reader, that when she knew she couldn’t help someone, it seemed so easy for her to walk away. But then there were other times when she was devastated if she wasn’t able to help. I’m sure there was rhyme and reason in her head, but it left me as a reader unsettled (in a good way) and it made me feel like I never knew what was going to happen next. I really enjoyed the mythology here, but I will say there were some parts that I found confusing. And once I got to the end of the book, there was a glossary of afterlife creatures that would have been helpful to have at the beginning of the book so I could refer to it when I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, or what a particular ghost’s purpose was. I also found it interesting that even while Rose is haunting, she is also still being haunted by the man who stole her life, and it was this man that was part of the overarching plot of the next book – and who I am sure we’ll see in the next one. I was surprised to find recurring characters in this book, and even more surprised when I became attached to them. With her often times snarky demeanor, I found Rose’s interactions with them fascinating. Last but not least, there’s even a little something extra in here for romance lovers. I’m not going to spoil it for you, and you’ll never see it coming, but I thought it was done perfectly.

I found Sparrow Hill Road to be an interesting take on the afterlife, and I cannot wait to see what adventures are in store for Rose!

This review was originally posted on Books & Beauty Are My Bag.

Both Seanan McGuire's October Dayes series and her Wayward Children series are among my all-time favorites. And her Incryptid series is pretty high up on that list. So I had high expectations going into Sparrow Hill Road. While this series has a slightly different tone, the same magic is still present.

Sparrow Hill Road is the story of Rose Marshall, also known as the Girl in the Green Silk Gown or the Girl in the Diner. It’s told somewhat non-linearly, which took me a bit to get used it. However, I ended up loving the format, I felt like it really allowed me to connect with Rose and understand how she became who she is in the present.

As usual, the world-building was absolutely fantastic! The amount of though that goes into every single detail is amazing. From ghosts to psychopomps to diners to ghost riders who are forever young, this world comes alive in vivid color. I also loved the exploration of America’s ghost stories, nomads, and road culture. Fun fact- This series is actually set in the same world as the Incryptid series (you can definitely catch some faster eggs if you’re looking but you don’t need to read that series to enjoy this one).

I wish I had better words to describe this novel but I think it’s best if you just read this one for yourself. At its heart, Sparrow Hill Road is more a character study of a girl who is just trying to figure out where she belongs than a spooky paranormal action story.

*Disclaimer: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The stories contained within this book all focus on Rose Marshall who died in 1952 in Buckley Township, Michigan. It was her prom night. A dance she never attended because a man named Bobby Cross who sold his soul to ride the highways forever ran her off the road.

Originally published in serial form, the book follows Rose in a non-linear timeline from her death in 1952 to present day. McGuire shares stories about this ghost who is known by many names; the phantom prom date, the woman at the diner, the girl in the green silk gown, and the walking girl of Route 42. She is most commonly referred to as the ghost of Sparrow Hill Road.

McGuire shares different events that occur on the highway as Rose travels. Along the way, we meet routewitches, crossroad guardians and roads that are alive. The story has royalty within the ghostly realm, vengeful humans, and ghosts. We even meet a be`a sidhe (banshee).

I loved the hierarchy, rules, and roads as the author fleshed out the world of the non-living. I came to care for Rose and secondary characters, even her nasty relative. The story has a bit of everything from death to romance.

The suspenseful thread surrounding Bobby Cross allowed me to experience suspense and chills. While I wouldn’t classify Sparrow Hill Road as horror, it does have spine-tingling moments that only a good ghost story can deliver.

McGuire weaved in superstitions while sharing these ghostly urban legends. She fed my inner nerd and expanding my vocabulary. While the original serial format led to some feelings of repetition, I was entertained and cannot wait for The Girl in the Green Silk Gown

Favorite Quote: “Persephone’s blessing says hands off to creepy boys who bargain with the crossroads and want to hurt me.”

Rose Marshall died in 1952 in Buckley Township, MI. On her way to look for her boyfriend after he stood her up for the prom, she is chased to her death on the infamous Sparrow Hill Road. A psychopomp of sorts but referred to a hitcher, Rose haunts the local truck stops and diners, always the last face seen before death claims another traveler while staying one step ahead of her killer. Hellbent on winning her freedom from a man who bargained with the crossroads, Rose will do whatever it takes to destroy him. After all, she has all the time in the world.

Anyone who has grown up in the midwest has heard of the Phantom Prom Date Ghost or the Girl in the Silk Green Dress. An Urban legend that despite its many names and appearances, all centers around a sixteen-year-old girl who died on her way to the prom and often appears to those driving down a long winding road, looking for a ride home. McGuire expands upon this legend, gracing readers with a humorous and bittersweet piece of Americana folklore as she tells us the story of the spirit known as the Girl in the Diner, the Lady in Green, The Phantom Prom Date, the Shadow of Sparrow Hill Road, and her journey through death as she plays guide for the dead while plotting revenge against the man who killed her.

“Let’s go kick some dead guy arse.”

McGuire’s already active imagination goes into hyperspeed as she builds a whole nother world that exists between twilight and daybreak. Set in her Incrypid world, McGuire draws upon different legends and mythology to add flavor and depth to Rose’s story. Originally presented in serial form (2010), McGuire restructures theses stories, shuffling them into four parts, with each part focusing on on an individual moment in Rose’s life. Though they are all set loosely in order, they read a little abrupt with some repetition until they find their rhythm. Using a conversational style of narrative, McGuire flashes between the past and the present as she slowly prepares Rose for what’s to come.

Rose is an entertaining conversationalist. Lively and opinionated with a very dry wit, she had me laughing throughout the book.

“I have never wanted to punch a highway in the face as badly as I do right now.”

Though perpetually sixteen, Rose is no juvenile anymore having been dead for over fifty years. Surprisingly not bitter over what happened to her, she took her death in stride and now looks forward to the little things that soften the unbendable rules she is forced to adhere too. Cheeseburgers…milkshakes… a nice warm coat. She has plenty of friends among the living and dead, each one a viable force to be reckoned with. Rose’s home away from home is the Last Chance Diner, owned and operated by her bestie, a bean sidhe named Emma. Emma knows how the rules work with Rose and helps when she can, but she doesn’t coddle Rose and often tells it like it is.

“I’m not the only hitcher in this state.”

“Is that so? And what state are we in then, Rosie-my-dear? Denial? Transition? Oh, could be in the state of grace? I’m really quite fond of that one, grace.”

Other personable entities drift in and out of Rose’s life as she travels the ghostroads towards her destiny. A destiny that harkens back to her murder and a love that never died.

Sparrow Hill Road is a unique ghost story filled with both light and dark moments that offers readers something different in this genre. McGuire leaves us with more than one unanswered question and I am looking forward to revisiting this world and spending more time with Rose, Gary, and the other residents of this world. Book two

Grade: B

f you ever told ghost stories around a campfire, you've heard some variation of this one. That combined with the intriguing blurb for this caught my attention. I expected something a bit creepy and possibly some action. I didn't find much of either, but that's on me and my own assumptions. On the whole, the book is well written and the author is certainly talented, but I found myself struggling to get through the book. What started as a seemingly great premise ended up being what was more like a series of not so scary ghost stories told from the ghosts point of view. We do have the underlying plot line of this man that is forever hunting Rose, but he's only mentioned here and there through a tangle of seemingly disjointed tales with little in common other than Rose. Some of these stories were interesting, some not so much, which led to a lengthy, drawn out read. I did keep at it to see where things would go and that underlying plot did finally bear some fruit, but it was a rather disappointing conclusion. There were also several unfamiliar words used throughout the book - some easier to figure out than others - and I was surprised to find a glossary of sorts to explain those words. Sadly, it was at the end of the book. Since I don't read the back of the book first, I wasn't aware of this, but it would've been nice to know as I was actually reading the story. So, while the idea was terrific, the end result was just okay for me and certainly wasn't enough for me to read further into the series.

Our Review by LITERAL ADDICTION's Pack Alpha - Chelle:
If you're a fan of ghost stories, creative worldbuilding, and fun, quirky heroines, you'll want to check out SPARROW HILL ROAD.

Rose Marshall is a sixteen-year-old from the 50s, killed nonsensically on prom night and taken from her one true love. For over 60 years, she has performed the job given to her by the Lady upon death, and has traveled the roads as a hitcher, helping other ghosts that die on the road get home--one way or the other. But she has one other driving purpose: find and eliminate the jerk who killed her. Bobby Cross.

Told as a series of interconnected snippets jumping from past to present in her encounters with other ghosts and witches and the living, SPARROW HILL ROAD is a very creative tale that engages and entertains. It can get a little confusing at times if you're not thoroughly invested, as the McGuire uses small chapter flashbacks to help drive the tale and there is lots of random character interaction for different purposes depending on the ghost story she is attempting to tell, but the creativity that went into the creation of this world and its characters was a breath of fresh air.

Rose Marshall's life ended before it really began, but that doesn't mean she's out of the picture. Of course, being dead comes with its own set of rules. Little things like how she's always cold unless she borrows a jacket from the living. Or how food she makes for herself tastes like ashes. Plus, there's that whole thing where she can sense when death is getting close to some of the living she crosses paths with.

Oh, yeah. And then there's the jerk who killed her and his twisted plans for her.

Rose's story is complicated. The world she knew before is mostly gone. She knows how to navigate the dangers of the ghost roads and she does it well. But it's a lonely existence. She has a few friends. A few enemies. And a whole bunch of people who know the legend of the girl in the diner.

I enjoyed the entire book, but I really started loving it when Rose's search for how to stop Bobby Cross began. She's been on the run for sixty years and she's done. She's ready to face her tormentor. It's just a matter of figuring out his weak spots, right?

I'm going to be intentionally vague here. Deal with it. THAT CAR, THO! O.O

Bring on book 2!

-Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal

Rose Marshall drove herself to the prom, thinking her boyfriend had dumped her because he never picked her up. Bobby Cross, who sold his sold to live forever and remain young, hit her, killing her as a sacrifice for his immortality. Sixty years later, she is still sixteen years old and roaming the ghost roads, stopping at diners close to the Twilight, and trying to prevent others from dying like her, or if they do, to assist them in escaping Bobby Cross, as he searches for these poor spirits of accidents to eat their souls. Like all urban legends, she is called by many names: The Girl in the Diner, Phantom Prom Date, and The Girl in the Green Silk Gown. And she’s ready to win her freedom from Bobby Cross.

Seanan McGuire once again has a book that kept me reading, interested in Rose and what happens to her. As an author of regional ghost books, I loved reading how the hitchhiking ghost legend was taken and twisted around to something new. If you enjoy campfire ghost stories, this book is one for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group DAW for a digital galley of this book.

Another version of Sparrow Hill Road will be released in June 2018. I hope there is some new material included. I haven't read any Seanan McGuire books before so all of this was new to me while established fans are probably going to see mostly stories they have read before. I will confess to having a hard time remaining focused on this book because the stories are just so much alike. I can see they would be very interesting if they were placed in anthologies or collections of like stories but to have them all here just one after another made them pretty hard for me to care much about. I've assigned a three star rating because the writing is good and the basic premise was excellent until I began to realize I was just reading the same thing over and over.

Rose Marshall was just sixteen when she died in a car crash and became a hitchhiker ghost, her car was run off the road by Bobby Cross and he has been chasing her ever since trying to claim her soul as payment for his own immortality. She's spent the last 60 years wandering the ghost roads trying to avoid Bobby while also protecting others from her fate. Sometimes she is able to help people avoid tragedy but other times there is nothing she can do but hold their hands until the end and help them move on in the afterlife so they don't get stuck like she has. Rose is a legend with many names and this is her story.

I'm a huge fan of Seanan McGuire's Incryptid series and I've been wanting to know more about Rose ever since she appeared in The Ghosts of Bourbon Street short story so I was really looking forward to reading Sparrow Hill Road. This book is quite different to the Incryptid stories though, it's less light hearted and funny and a little more melancholy. It was also originally published as twelve short stories (although I believe some extra material has been added when it was turned into a book) so I found the book was a little disjointed at times, particularly in the beginning. It took me quite a while to get used to the way the story jumped from the present to various different points in the past, initially there didn't seem to be much logic to the order the story was told in but it's only as you get later in the book that you start to see the method behind the madness and realise how cleverly the author pulled all the different elements of Rose's life and afterlife together.

Rose a great character, she never asked for her fate and that could have made her bitter but instead she's tried to make the best of things and help others where she can. She has spent a long time trying to hide from her murderer but Bobby's immortality is at stake so he is equally determined to find her and their confrontation has been 60 years in the making so as you'd imagine it's quite epic when it finally happens!

I loved learning about the different types of ghosts, what caused them to become ghosts in the first place and how that affected the abilities they had after death. Seanan McGuire draws on all different kinds of legends and stories and she's used it to create a rich and detailed afterlife with all kinds of layers to it. She includes humans like the route witches who are able to communicate with the different road ghosts and other types of incryptids who Rose is also able to interact with. There were so many characters that I'd love to revisit in the future so I'm hoping that they'll either crop up in the main Incryptid novels or perhaps be given stories of their own later on.

Rose Marshall is the ghost of Sparrow Hill Road (paper from DAW). She is a hitcher ghost becoming almost alive when someone lends her a coat. She was run off the road in 1952, when she was sixteen. Bobby Cross who made a deal with the devil to keep driving forever as long as he killed enough is constantly chasing her. According to Seanan McGuire she can smell death and save some of her rides and show those who can’t, send them to ‘home’. In her various adventures she is captured by a witch determined to kill her for the death of the witch’s beau. She has to deal with college students playing parapsychologist who evoke more than they can handle, and numerous other adventures. Lots of fun with a sequel coming in a few months. Review printed by Philadelphia Free Press

Rose Marshall is known throughout the country by many different names. She is the famous hitchhiking girl in a beautiful prom dress, who needs a jacket to stay warm and only wants to go home. The thing about Rose is she has been dead since 1952. Since then, she has wandered the highways of America looking for her next ride. Rose sometimes leads others home, and at other times she is trying to evade the man who killed her. Will Rose ever find peace?

What I Liked:
*What an interesting little read. I must admit, I was expecting a creepy ghost story, and instead I got an eclectic mix of stories blending together to form Rose's journey. This isn't your typical read, but I found it to be intriguing. Not to mention the world building is exceptional. If you are looking for creepy ghosts, this is not the book for you, but if you want something unique, take a chance and try this one.
*Where this book excels is with the world building. I was most impressed with the layers and layers of worlds and the ghostly characters who haunt them. Ms. McGuire has created a whole other ghost world, layered beneath the every day world. I loved the world building and I enjoyed learning about all the different types of ghosts in the Twilight layers and beyond. There are hitchers, cross road ghosts, route witches, banshees, psychopomps and more. If you are like me and you enjoy books with outstanding and layered world building and unique characters, definitely pick this one up. I especially appreciated that there was a glossary at the back to help clarify all the different ghosts and such.
*Rose is the heroine of this tale. I grew quite fond of Rose. She started her journey as a naive, sixteen year old ghost who only wanted to escape her hometown and to be with her boyfriend. As Rose wanders the ghost roads year after year, she encounters all kinds of people dead and alive. Rose isn't your average ghost. She is a hitcher, a ghost destined to wander the highways looking for a warm jacket to heat her cold, weary bones, and make her corporeal as long as she is wearing the jacket. I loved that Rose was so much more than a shade, and that she could become human and eat and interact with the living. I also appreciated that she grows so much and learns a great deal. I loved my journey with Rose. I adored her.
*Even though it took a bit of time to adjust to the delivery of the story, I liked that it all ended up piecing together. This is not a simple, straightforward, chronological story. Instead it is a bunch of anecdotes that cover Rose's journey on the ghost road. The story moves forward and backward in time, and it does require patience, but in the end, everything snaps into place and makes sense.
*I listened to the audiobook narrated by Amy Landon, and I must say, she does an outstanding job. Amy gives Rose her heart and soul, and I don't think I would have enjoyed this book as much if I had read it. Ms. Landon's narration is top notch. I highly recommend the audio version.
And The Not So Much:
*This book won't be for everyone because of its non linear story line. It isn't always easy to follow, so if you are the type that doesn't like books that wander around and don't follow a straight forward, cohesive story line, this one will likely frustrate you.
*I have to admit, I was a tiny bit disappointed that this wasn't a bit more creepy. I was expecting it to be spooky since it deals with ghosts, but it isn't. I was also hoping that it would incorporate more ghost legends and folklore from the U.S., but it doesn't.
*Since this is a bunch of short stories strung together, you have some repetition. I don't know if this was intended as a serial or what, but it reads a bit like one. The author repeats certain things over and over such as Rose's need for jackets, and her desire to get home.
*I did struggle with the fact that I found myself not as engaged with certain portions of the story. The story line bounces around so much, and it changes so often that I would often be engrossed in a certain aspect of the story only to have it shift to something completely different in the next chapter. There were definitely parts that were much stronger than others, and often I was struggling to understand how certain chapters fit into the big picture. It does all make sense in the end, but it required patience.

Sparrow Hill Road was an incredibly unique and creative book, unlike anything I have read before. I loved the world building and the numerous ghostly entities presented in the story, not to mention that Rose is based on a famous U.S. ghost story. This is a book that requires some patience as it doesn't follow a straight forward, linear story line. If you are wanting something original, I highly recommend trying this, just be patient. The audiobook is outstanding, not to be missed.

I borrowed a copy of this book from the library. All opinions are my own and I was not compensated for this review.
Posted@Rainy Day Ramblings.

This was not what I expected after reading the books sysnopsis. I thought it was going to be a single story telling when in reality it was a collaboration of short stories and novella length stories all focusing on the legends surrounding Rose Marshall, a ghost, and her battle against the man, now ghost, Bobby Cross that killed her and set the path for her ride the ghost roads for eternity.

That being said, Seanan McGuire pens magical tales that catapults the reader into a world of myths and legends. This is not a HEA type of read, with a heavy dose of dark urban fantasy...its a ghost story what else could you expect.

I received this copy of Sparrow Hill Road from Berkley Publishing Group. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Disclosure: I received a review copy from the publicist in exchange for a honest review.

I love McGuire’s work! I’ve read most her books, such as her October Daye series from the beginning, her latest series featuring a family of cryptologists and her Parasitology duology under her pen name Mira Grant…anything she writes, I will read. When I first heard about McGuire’s Sparrow Hill Road, I was ecstatic since I’m a sucker for ghost stories, and happened to miss the serialized version of the story when it was online years ago. So when the chance came to review Sparrow Hill Road, I jumped at the opportunity!

Sparrow Hill Road is a first person narrative, as readers follow along Rose when she was alive and in death. The majority of the book takes place after death, as Rose navigates the ghost roads, hitchhiking her way across America. It takes Rose about 3 years to really understand the rules of the ghost road, content with her job assisting the newly departed to their home/final destination. It isn’t till Rose learns that her murderer, Bobby Cross, a man neither dead nor alive is still preying on people just like herself, running them off the roads to their death that she wants to put an end to his terror.

Whether McGuire is writing about fairies, monsters, zombies, bio-engineered alien-like worms, or ghosts; she definitely puts her own signature on the topic, creating a unique and wonderful world within the pages of a book. I didn’t know what to expect when I started Sparrow Hill Road, it was different from any ghost story I ever read. It was like mini Rose stories within a story (I get why now it was a serial/episode first), the story jumps back and forth over the span of 60 years since Rose died in the first 2/3 of the book and in the last 1/3 of the book it is set in the present day. We encounter each and every single person Rose manages to save and the unlucky ones that she assists along the ghost road. I’m an action type of gal, I like seeing an overall conflict or an endgame in the long run and I didn’t really see one in Sparrow Hill Road. However, that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the stories (book is divided into 4 parts: book1, book2…etc) within the story because I did. I thought it was really interesting to see what it means to be a road ghost and all the other types of ghosts Rose meets; many I never heard of before. Each ghost has their own trait and duties that differ from road ghost Rose (given that she died on the “road”); there is also a handy little ghost reference guide at the back of the book to help you familiarize yourself with the types of ghost before you start the book.

Rose isn’t what I expected either. Rose died when she was 16-years-old but she isn’t like any typical 16-year-old, having been died for 60 years…she definitely has a lot of tricks up her sleeves, and isn’t ashamed to do some questionable things. And while she is 16, she has a voice of someone in their early-mid 20’s; she’s real, straightforward, a ‘takes no crap’ kind of girl. This happens to be exactly my type of heroine.

Sparrow Hill Road is a great introduction to the new Ghost Stories series, and I am really looking forward to see where McGuire plans to take this series. The story wraps up nicely, but I’m assuming there will be more stories of Rose or a character within in the world since this book is titled ‘Ghost Stories #1’. I highly recommend this book to all McGuire and urban fantasy fans, it surely will not disappoint.

Well, this one is a bit jumbled. Using legendary tales, this is a ghost who hitchhikes. The legend part and an older time in history lend this tale a good amount of mixed emotions. Rose, once a sixteen-year-old who's forever stuck as a ghost because of some bad choices. Parts of it are repeated, I think that's because Rose has been stuck for so long in her current plight. Overall, it was okay.

My copy came from Net Galley. My thoughts and opinions are my own. This review is left of my own free volition.

I enjoy McGuire's October Daye series, but I live in the area so can't help but enjoy them (and I have a secret crush on Sylvester - woohoo!). But I adore her Incryptid series, which is laugh-out-loud funny. It took me a while to pick up "Sparrow Hill Road", however - I'm not normally a ghost story lover. WOW, I'm sooooooooooo sorry I waited so long to buy this!

This is a brilliant, creative collection of tales about a ghost named Rose. The world-building is polished and logical. The writing is straightforward yet lyrical, evocative in that way that the best episodes of "Twilight Zone" make you sorry to reach the end. There's some sweet small successes, some poignant failures, some anger and frustration, some eerie whispered horrors - all combining to make one of the most unforgettable paranormal books I've read in six decades.

"Sparrow Hill Road" is an instant classic. Buy it, read it, treasure it forever. This one's a keeper, by any measure.

First in the Ghost Stories urban fantasy series about a ghost … who once lived in Buckley Township in Michigan.

<strong>My Take</strong>
Man, even thinking about this story again makes me cry, for the loss and for the stupid horror of the accident that changed Rose’s life. Then what Gary does? What can I say, keep those tissues handy. Keep ‘em handy for the night Rose gets pushed into telling her story. I don’t care who you are, you will weep.

It reads like a series of short stories woven into a single story, a truly fabulous story — even with all the tears — as McGuire creates a whole new culture about ghosts with hierarchies and specialties. And McGuire teases, tantalizes, and leads you on, giving out hints and tastes that lead to the whole story. What I enjoyed was how well she teased, lol.

Makes sense that carnie workers know a ghost and their cultures; they’re a very generous group.

Do pay attention to the dates as McGuire has you hopping back and forth from today to 1952.

<strong>The Story</strong>
Rose Marshall came from the wrong side of the tracks but it didn’t keep Gary from loving her. He knew how much he adored his Rose, if only Rose had kept the faith that night.

Angry, miserable, Rose ignores all around her until the white-haired trucker who bought her a cheese sandwich.

After that, it’s the smells that warn Rose how badly her help is needed: ashes and honeysuckle is negotiable, of the road; ashes and lilies is a foregone conclusion;

<strong>The Characters</strong>
<strong>Rose Marshall</strong> is a hitcher who travels the roads doing good deeds as a psychopomp. The urban "myths" call her anything from the ghost of Sparrow Hill Road, the woman at the diner, Phantom Prom Date, Girl in the Diner, and the Lady in Green. <strong>Arthur</strong> and <strong>Morty</strong> are her older brothers. <strong>Gary Daniels</strong> is the boy from the right side of the tracks, the boy she loved. <strong>Bethany</strong> is a routewitch and Rose's grandniece, and she oughta know better. <strong>Mary Dunlavy</strong> also died in Buckley, now she's a crossroads ghost.

The <strong>Last Dance Diner</strong> is run by <strong>Emma</strong>, a <em>beán sidhe</em>, an Irish death omen and collector of the unquiet dead. The Last Dance is a safe diner for ghosts until it becomes the <strong>Last Chance</strong>. <strong>Amy O'Malley</strong> is a three-fer. <strong>Will</strong> is the boy she loves. The last of her family, she's looked after by Emma. The <strong>Valhalla Valkyries</strong> give Rose their blessing. The <strong>Kindly Ones</strong> watch for oathbreakers.

<strong>Larry Vibber</strong> is a truck driver; <strong>Tommy</strong> wanted to win that race to marry his girl; <strong>Mckenzie</strong> is a cheerleader; <strong>Dinah</strong> and <strong>Josie</strong> are waitresses; <strong>Michael</strong> and <strong>Anthony</strong>, the college boy, are caught in the crossfire; <strong>Chris</strong> is a sweetheart who doesn't deserve it; and, <strong>Dennis</strong> was a hitchhiker caught up in more than anyone could believe. <strong>Patrick Swenson</strong> and <strong>Josh</strong> are alive because they listened.

<strong>Apple</strong> is the <strong>Queen of the Routewitches</strong>, not someone you want to cross, and holds "court on the old Atlantic Highway". The <strong>Ocean Lady</strong> is the ghost version of this highway. <strong>Eloise</strong> is a routewitch who gave Rose the information. The last ruler was the <strong>King</strong> who took on the punishment for what he did. <strong>Mikey</strong> does the tattoo. <strong>Carl</strong> is the routewitch who helps Gary with his last request.

The evil <strong>Bobby Cross</strong> is wormwood and ashes; he's made a deal with the crossroads, and it's not one that favors anyone else. <strong>Dmitri</strong> doesn't know what he is. <strong>Professor Laura Moorhead</strong> is a survivor, and she's furious about her boyfriend's death. <strong>Jamie</strong>, <strong>Marla</strong>, <strong>Angela</strong>, <strong>Tom</strong>, and <strong>Katherine</strong> shouldn't have listened to Laura.

<strong>Hitchers</strong> know their roads whether they're ghost roads or the real thing. <strong>Homecomers</strong> forget everything but wanting to get home. Not much is known about the <strong>trainspotters</strong> except that sometimes they can see the future. <strong>Strigoi</strong> are trapped by wanting to finish something. <strong>Routewitches</strong> hunt down the stories of the roads, make bargains with it, use its power. <strong>Phantom riders</strong> bring their cars with them, home, and are tied to the stretch of road where they died. <strong>Crossroads ghosts</strong> oversee the bargains. A <strong>haunt</strong> lost love at some point and their kiss can kill or cure. "The <strong>twilight</strong> is another country", a place where you adapt or die. A <strong>Maggy Dhu</strong> is a Black Hound of the Dead whose bite kills.

<strong>The Cover and Title</strong>
The cover is perfect with a slightly transparent Rose and a letter jacket resting on a vintage car beside a cornfield. She may not be in her green prom dress, but she’s still dressed for her time period in a pair of rolled-up jeans and a form-fitting, satin shirt with a sad look on her face.

The title is where Rose was killed, on <em>Sparrow Hill Road</em>.

Have you heard of the urban legend of the Vanishing Hitchhiker? Normally a young woman, often in an evening gown, she hitches a ride with a passing motorist. Sometimes she borrows a coat or a scarf. Then she disappears. Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire is narrated by this legend. Driven off the road in 1952 while wearing her prom dress, Rose Marshall has been haunting the roads ever since.

“’Go toward the light,’ they tell the dead, but in my experience, the light has always been an oncoming car,” says Rose (p. 108).

This book was not what I expected. Although it’s a ghost story, it can’t be classified as horror or even as scary. The narrative jumps around in time, from 1952 to the present, as Rose relates her encounters with various living and dead people (and some who are somewhere in between). We learn about her life, and her death, and what’s it like to be a ghost who is called home whenever a person who you cared about in life is ready to die.

We meet ghost hunters and an undead stretch of road, and we visit many diners, where Rose can enjoy a hamburger and a malt if given freely to her by someone living.

This is a story of the road, not just Sparrow Hill Road, where Rose died, but the entire network of roads across the U.S., and the ghost roads that lay underneath them. This book is a love letter to the roads, and to the drivers that navigate them, and to the diners that once gave them food and rest.

“Every inch of ground on this planet is a palimpsest, scraped clean and overwritten a million times, leaving behind just as many ghosts. That daylight America exists, alongside a thousand other Americas just like it, but the twilight Americas outnumber them a thousand-fold, and beneath them, the midnight Americas lurk, hungry and waiting.” (p. 41)

This is not a book of great action. Rose’s character is well drawn, and the author spends a lot of time on world building. Hitchers and routewitches, gather-grims and bean sidhe. Some of these are real legends and some were created by the author, but I didn’t really care which as I read this fascinating book. McGuire’s ghostroad underworld felt like a real place, and Rose like a real person (although a dead one).

Sparrow Hill Road gets a little draggy in the middle and turns a bit far-fetched as Rose reunites with her long-lost love in automobile form, but the narrative constantly went in directions I did not expect. I recommend this unusual novel to any reader who likes something a little out of the ordinary and is willing to be pulled along into the fantastical.

Having loved Seanan McGuire's other works, I instantly dove into this book without a moment's pause.

This isn't a typical ghost story that's told around the campfire late at night or in the dark with a flashlight. It's a series of twelve stories that explores the ideas behind urban myths, hitch-hiking ghosts, and how the open road shaped the landscape of America beyond the mortal plane.

Rose Marshall is a ghost, and has been for the past 60 years, give or take. She was run off the road at Sparrow Hill Road by Bobby Cross as his means for immortality. But she escaped, and has been running from him since. She's meant to be a free spirit, traveling from coast to coast. But somehow in the afterlife, she winds up becoming much more. The stories are not necessarily in chronological order. They crisscross through years and mileage as Rose discovers what sort of ghost she's meant to be. and go through excerpts of simple joys, to the darker aspects of being dead that Rose experiences in her search for answers.

There are some nods to some of Seanan McGuire's other works in the form of olfactory sleuthing and a cameo mention of distant relations who like to study cryptozoology. But they don't detract from the story. If anything, they add to the world building and make you wonder how much if it is all happening within the same universe.

I had a hard time getting through this book because it was so repetitive. There is a languid feel to the storytelling, which is fine, except that it never really changes pace. What began as a slow, detailed introduction to the Ghost Road was repeated many times within the same chapter. Seanan McGuire writes beautifully in her descriptions, but rather than saying something new, it seemed like she was finding different ways to say the same thing. I felt like each small section had been written individually rather than as part of a cohesive book, and looking at other reviews, it seems that is what happened. Hence, the constant re-introductions to the Ghost Road and the lack of pacing. Despite the issues I had in reading this, I thought the concept itself was brilliant. It's an entirely new kind of road story where the road itself is a character. I also loved how McGuire took standard mythological and supernatural creatures and gave then completely non-standard characteristics.

I didn't have the pleasure of reading Rose Marshall's story when it first appeared in serialized form on the Edge of Propinquity website, so everything in this book was new to me (whereas some of it might have been old news to long-time McGuire fans). There were some very pleasant surprises and reveals throughout, and even a somewhat subtle connection to McGuire's InCryptid books, which I really love. (I think there's also a solid connection to McGuire's short story "Homecoming" from the September 2013 issue of Lightspeed magazine, but I don't think the author's confirmed that one yet.)

Rose Marshall herself is a fascinating focal character, and with a small exception here or there, the novel is told in first person from her point of view. It's not easy to write a character who is forever sixteen but has been around for seventy-something years and manage to keep her feeling young without also having her feel too precocious. McGuire walks that line by showing us in various flashbacks how Rose was as a living teenager versus a newly-minted road ghost versus how she is now.

It's also not necessarily easy to take short stories that were published independently of each other and whip them into shape as a cohesive novel; sometimes the cracks show no matter what the author does. Not so here; if any massaging of the serialized website version was done for the print edition (such as removing repetitive "here's what happened last month" info-dumps), it wasn't noticeable to this reader as it has been in similar books I've read.

The time-jumps in each section of the story also build the reader's suspense, not only about what actually happened that night on Sparrow Hill Road, but also about how Rose has "lived" (for lack of a better term) from then to now. The constant jumping around might annoy some readers, but it kept my attention and enhanced the world-building with plenty of small "a-ha" moments as I made connections Rose herself hadn't necessarily revealed yet or as connections I hadn't made became evident.

Rose is the narrator but she's far from the only well-developed character: McGuire takes the time to develop the demonic Bobby Cross, the baen sidhe (and proprietess of the Last Chance Diner) Emma, and several other supporting characters who become more or less important to Rose's story as it jumps from present to past and back again.

I'm always enamored of McGuire's world-building, whether it's in the Toby Daye books or Incryptid or in self-contained short stories. Here, she takes various ghostly urban legends (like "the girl who just needs a ride home / a ride to prom") and spins a whole universe of different types of traveling ghosts out of them, with her own unique touch. Around the ghosts, McGuire also creates various cultures that interact with road ghosts and with the roads themselves: ambulomancers, routewitches, trainspotters and umbramancers. The routewitches are the most well-developed because of the way their own cultural story connects so deeply to Rose's personal journey; I'm hoping that in future volumes (and clearly I'm hoping there will be future volumes), McGuire will likewise develop the ambulomancers, trainspotters and umbramancers.

So you've heard the story about Rose Marshall right? How she died on the way to her prom and became a ghost? Some say she leads men to their deaths when they offer her a ride, others claim she's only trying to save the ones who aren't too far gone. Whatever you've heard this is her story; the story of how a small town 16 year old girl who just wanted more from life could turn into an urban legend everybody knew.

Unlike a lot of folk going into this book cold I knew that the "Rose Marshall" stories were episodic and at one time spread across the internet as far as possible. I went into the book knowing this and thus wasn't surprised or irritated by the repetition from time to time. Rose spends half of her time educating the reader (or newly dead) on what it means to live in the Twilight. What you lose, what you gain, what the rules are that govern those who travel the Ghost Roads.

Rose is a "Hitcher" or a "Hitchhiker", she's drawn to those who live their life on the road or will die because of it. That young girl you see on the side of some lonely back road or hanging at a diner off the beaten track? Probably Rose. She'll hitch a ride to get to where she needs to go and maybe, if you're very lucky and your time hasn't come, she can even prevent you from dying on the road.

As she explains the stories aren't told in a very linear fashion, not til closer to the end when they begin to bleed into one and other and you can't have one without the other. By in large a good half of the book can be read in whatever order you want. I'm not sure if MacGuire (or her editor or Publisher) decided to mix them up even more. What I can say is that some details you'll read about in one chapter, you won't find out the truth of the tale until a later chapter. And some truths are harder to handle then others.

Woven throughout is Rose's crusade to stop "Bobby Cross" (the man who killed her to become an immortal legend) and her resolve to prevent him from doing to others what he did to her. Sometimes she's successful, other times she's not, but through it all she has a grim determination and resolve. Its more then revenge, though several characters ask her if that's what it is to her. She found a purpose in her aimless wandering after life and she was bound and determined to make it through.

I really liked Rose--she's much more practical and pragmatic then many of the characters running around in fiction, especially of those who are "teenagers", but not really (looking at you every single teen vampire/immortal out there). She didn't stay "stuck" in time, she moved on, she grew and expanded and learned how to work the system. She's not without her flaws of course, and we see as she makes mistakes that she later reflects on and realize it was really dumb to not notice the issues, but she felt so very real.

Insofar as other recurring characters go there are a few--Emma, the <i>bean sidhe</i> who Rose befriends, Tommy who she once asked for a ride from, Bobby Cross who we don't meet in the "flesh" until later in the book but who's shadow is long and dark. Emma is likeable and given more depth then either Tommy or Bobby in my opinion. Bobby is...he's portrayed as a certain kind of guy who many of us know or know of.

There's some loose-ish ends that don't get as much tying up, comments from Rose that drift away as her confrontation with Bobby looms, snippets of conversations that she doesn't focus on in her pursuit. And this book can get downright creepy and spooky, though I found myself feeling sorry for many of the people Rose comes across. Some of them just don't know any better, which is sad and pitiful no matter if you are alive or dead.

This is a collection of loose stories about the death of ghost Rose Marshall. Rose might have died in 1952 but she has been hitchhiking the roads of America ever since. She has been immortalised in urban legends as ‘the girl in the diner’, ‘the phantom prom date’ and ‘the girl in the green silk gown’ but each of these stories only captures one facet of her personality.

As Rose died on a highway, she has a special affiliation for it. She can read it and is seemingly set with the job of leading those who die on it into the light. She has seen an awful lot over the years and approaches events with a fair degree of world-weariness and pragmatism. Rose might still look like a teenager but she has done an awful lot over the years to survive and get warm. Few people who recognise her for who she is and even fewer give without expecting anything in return. It was a bit of a shame that only Rose and the baddie Bobby Cross are given real depth with the rest of the characters remaining fairly indistinguishable.

The biggest problem with this book was the amount of repetition. I understand that the stories were originally published in serial format so it makes sense for McGuire to reorientate her audience at the start of them. In a book form however, it isn’t necessary and starts to grate fairly quickly. The world we are given is fascinating but I wanted to know more beyond the different classes of ghosts and routewitches. Rose’s comprehension of her world is still fairly narrow after fifty plus years because no one mentored her or explained how the system works. The pacing is slow and this effect is exacerbated as we bounce around time wise for the first two thirds of the book – it is hard to get too concerned about whether Rose will survive X event in X year if a quick glance at the index shows she’s still wandering around several years later. The last part of the book where Rose went on the attack was probably my favourite as the tension ratcheted up nicely.

It is definitely worth a read and Rose’s voice is a compelling one. Please don’t do what I did however and devour it all in one sitting. Treat it as a series of related short stories and read one or two at a time.

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar

Seanan Mcguire brings us a new story with Sparrow Hill Road. She is known for the use of legends, fairy tales and myths in her stories, and just like it, we can see it in this book also. Do you remember the 1995 movie of Susie Q? Well that is what I thought of when I read Sparrow Hill Road. I liked that movie and I also liked this book. You can say that they are somewhat alike; If Susie were a hitchhiking ghost, psychopomp from time to time, eating in dinners and had a young old Hollywood star chasing her. But this Susie is Rose. Rose Marshall.

At the beginning of the book, the timeline of the story goes back and forth between Rose remembering events and persons. It is easy to keep up with the pace of the story and it even makes it more interesting. Another name for this book could be Rose’s Memories because this is what it is, the memories of a ghost, while alive and after death.

Some of the stories are sad, they’ll make your heart hurt and shed tears for the girl who couldn’t make it to prom. But others are happy, exciting and interesting; they make you want to keep reading to find out the conclusion. A good message would be to be truthful to yourself and fight for what you want to achieve even if is justice or revenge.

Half way through the book and I thought that the sad stories where over, but I was wrong. The book is divided into four parts and when you get to the last one it turns bitter-sweet.

“Her name was Rose. She was the only girl I ever loved-the only girl I guess I could have ever loved, the only girl that I was designed for loving. She wasn’t perfect. Nobody’s perfect. But she was close enough for a small town boy who dreamed of one day touching something greater. I guess she felt the same way about me. She came back to me, after all, even if it was only once, even if I didn’t know that she was already gone.

I’ve spent my whole life trying, but I never fell in love again-not the way I fell in love with her; when the world was young and innocent, and silly teenage boys believed their girlfriends were immortal. Her name was Rose.”

Sparrow Hill Road is set in the same universe as Incryptid. In Half-Off Ragnarok, Alex has a phone conversation with his sister, Verity, and mentions a ghost by the name of Rose Marshall that is taking her boyfriend and her to a death party in New Orleans. You can read the short story“The Ghosts of Bourbon Street”with the other half of the conversation and Rose at the author’s website. The book also comes with The Price Family Field Guide to the Twilight of North America Ghostroad Edition.

I really liked this book, I could even say I loved it. I recommend you to read Sparrow Hill Road, where America is divided in more than two, ghost like to eat burgers and fries, and you never know if the person walking down the road is alive or dead.

Would you pick up that girl at the diner? Tell us in the comments.

*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*

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I found Sparrow Hill Road at the bookstore when I was picking out books for my birthday present from my parents. I've read and loved several of Seanan McGuire's other books, and I definitely don't regret one of her books being a birthday buy. :D

For those familiar with the InCryptid books (Discount Armageddon, Midnight Blue-Light Special, etc.), Rose's story takes place in the same universe, and while some of the characters from that story are mentioned very rarely (the Healy family), I have only read Discount Armageddon so far and didn't feel that I was necessarily missing anything. :) I do think that someone who is more familiar with the universe will definitely appreciate the mentions, though!

Going into Sparrow Hill Road, it is necessary to mention that it was originally serialized. Due to the original format, there is a lot of repetition across the stories, so if that's something that you as a reader wouldn't be able to look past and would get horribly annoyed by, Sparrow Hill Road may not be for you. That said, there is a really awesome story here, so it would be a shame. :)

The collection opens up with "The Dead Girl in the Diner," and the story completely blew me away and even made me cry. It was creepy, sad, and awesome all at once. While some of the following stories didn't grab me quite as much as that one did, they all showed us another piece of Rose's world, and I really liked what I was seeing. I will warn potential readers that the stories don't seem to have a connection between them until about halfway through. At that point, the skips through time between stories becomes much smaller and each story is more closely linked to the one before it.

While I liked the short story-esque aspect of the collection, it also has the downfall that, for the most part, once a story concludes, the reader doesn't feel a huge need to continue on to the next one until they want to know what Rose is going to get herself into next time. I think this is basically just because of the original way the story was told, so be prepared for the beginnings of most of the stories to slow down a bit, but I will say that once each story gets going, it's hard to put down again.

My only complaint in terms of the writing (which I'm not factoring into my rating) is that a lot of the terms of this world are mentioned and then not really explained. While it can be gleaned from the text what and who these terms refer to, I personally found it a bit overwhelming at first. I was happy to discover that there is a field guide at the back of the book which explains some of them in more depth (however, there are some minor spoilers in the explanations, as a warning). My confusion with the terms may be related to not having read other stories from this universe, though, and the field guide at the back of the book cleared up the grand majority of my questions. I also admit that it would probably be a little strange for Rose to need to explain them, since they are and always have been a part of her world. :)

I LOVED the idea of the different layers of America, and the ghostroads, and the twilight and midnight and daylight and all of it. I just... I can barely express how much I loved it. Such an awesome idea and McGuire does awesome things with it. I was completely entranced by the imagery of the several layers of America, and I just... AHHH, I just loved it. So awesome. Overall, I found this to be a really enjoyable collection, and I'm really looking forward to (hopefully) seeing where Rose's story goes next!

Full disclosure: I LOVE SEANAN MCGUIRE'S WRITING.

I discovered her via her pen name and have been devouring her stellar tales ever since. It would be easy to wax fan boyish about her flagship titles (and I certainly have) but I want to talk about this book because THIS book, of all of them, did more than ignite my fancy.

Reading Rose's story and that of the worlds she inhabits is like being sung a beautiful melancholy song you didn't realize you'd forgotten. This ghost story is actually a life story in every good way. the fact that its author had the audacity to use a narrative that is, shall we say, less than linear and that she stuck the landing is just another testament to amazing quality of this work.

Buy this book. Meet Rose Marshall. Love Rose Marshall. Tell your friends.

I loved this book. It was fun, fascinating and so different from the usual paranormal or urban fantasies I've been reading. Books like this are what makes reading exciting and re-energizing.

Rose Marshall is a wonderful, fully realized character and I found myself caring about her and her story just about immediately. All of the side characters felt just as real and I want to learn more about them.
I also absolutely loved the world and mythology that was created for this book, it felt so real, like it should work the way it was described and nothing pulled me out of it and made me want more.
I also enjoyed how each section was a little mini-story in it's own right, it almost felt like a collection of linked short stories with each one flowing in to the next.
I haven't read anything else by this author though two of her series are on my to be read list, I will make trying them a priority after this one and I am really, really looking forward to more in this series.
Thinking more on this, the author reminds me strongly of the early Charles DeLint books and the believable and complicated worlds he created, I've missed urban fantasies like that and this makes me all the more excited for more in this series.
If you enjoy urban fantasies but are tired of the typical vampires, witches and werewolves definitely give this one a try.

Seanan McGuire is a local favorite, author of two series of urban fantasy books that (apparently) sell like mad (as well as some horror novels under the name Mira Grant). This is not part of either of those series, though it is loosely related to one of them.

In 1952, Rose Marshall was run off Sparrow Hill Road by a demon (not quite literally) driver named Bobby Cross, who feeds his own eternal youth with the souls of those he kills on the road. Somehow she escaped, and became a "hitcher" - a road ghost who wanders the road, hitching rides and occasionally acting as psychopomp for those freshly dead on the road. This book tells of her adventures on the road, not all of which involve her quest to repay Bobby Cross for the "favor."

It's actually not quite a novel, but a linked series of stories - something a bit more than a fix-up.

The writing is clear and transparent, though a bit flat at times. Some of Rose's wisecracks (the tales are told in the first person) don't quite work. But she's an engaging character, an eternal sixteen-year-old, always on her way to the prom. If Ms. McGuire writes more stand-alone books, I shall certainly be interested, but I'm not interested enough to make a commitment to a series based on this.

I have not had the pleasure of reading Seanan McGuire's previous books or her short fiction. I grant, I have been living under a rock and will crawl out to read the rest of her work!

I thought this book was amazing, from concept to end. The idea of a classic ghost tale, spun from urban legend into the here-and-now was masterfully accomplished on every level. The depth of the author's knowledge on her topic shone through and yet was interwoven with common daily language and references. Rose and her counterparts were as alive as any fictional characters you could hope to meet.

The only fault I had was my own, as I had some trouble discerning the levels of the "ghostroads" in her new-to-me-world, but I am hoping for the chance to acquaint myself with her knowledge further.

As for the writing itself, at times I was reminded of what I have always considered to be the "best" of Ray Bradbury (i.e., "Something Wicked This Way Comes", "October County", "Halloween Tree", etc.) as well as Charles de Lint. Those images and emotions just don't get much better. Ms. McGuire even threw in a refernce to the master himself, Stephen King, that made me giggle.

Very well done! Thank you.

I usually love everything that this author does but there's just something about this book that just isn't on par with all her other works. I think that its an intriguing idea, and one that not a lot of people have tackled. There are lots of ghost stories out there but not a lot of them are centered on the ghosts point of vie. That being said that I think that this one missed the mark. For me part of the problem is that while the author starts out with ghosts, urban legends that are pretty close to what we've all heard by the end of the book all those ghosts and urban legends have all gone pretty far away from where they started. While some people may like that I like my widely known ghosts types and urban legends to be what everyone knows them as. The second problem that I have is that there are a lot of the parts of the world that the author doesn't bother to explain. When you are creating a whole new world and throwing words around that don't even exist anywhere else but in your world you might wanna take a sec to stop and explain them. I'll still read the next book in the series, if there is one, but in my opinion this isn't the authors best work.

The central character of this book is Rose Marshall. She's also known as the phantom prom date. She was killed in an accident in 1952 and since then has wandered the roads of this world and the spaces between. Sometimes she is helpful, sometimes she is not. But her world and the characters who inhabit her world paint and interesting picture of ghosts in America. While she does at time mention older creatures such as the Black Dog or Hellhound, most of the stories center around the American love of motor driven vehicles and the lore of the road.

Interesting book that should appeal to those who enjoy urban fantasy. Probably wouldn't particularly appeal to hardcore paranormal romance fans though. If you have to have a HEA tread carefully. Although there isn't a cliff hanger at the end of this book, it appears to be the first in a series. Although I found the conclusion satisfying it leaves room for further volumes.

Narrator by Amy Landon. This is the first book by her I have listened to. She doesn't have the verve of Mary Robinette Kowal who reads the October Daye books, but she did keep me interested and entertained with no annoying mispronunciations or verbal tics.

Seanan McGuire writes a lot of fun books that don't take themselves too seriously. In some ways, it's along the same vein as Butcher's Dresden, but it is more lighthearted and not as formulaic. The style of her work reminds me in some ways of Joss Whedon in terms of humor and pacing.

Sparrow Hill Road is a fun set of intertwined vignettes that moves along in a meandering way - what one would expect from a girl dead for 60 years. It jumps sometimes between past and present, and definitely gives you a kind of 'feel' of being on the other side of the veil. This is not a horror book by any means, but it is a fun book - even when it treads on the poignant.

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would (and I thought I would like it as a pool-side read), and found it to be even better than the Cryptid books. I'm hoping we may see more tales from Sparrow Hill Road in the future.

I really liked this idea. And the characters were pretty interesting as well. The little scenes were exciting. But after a while the lack of a clear plot line got a bit wearing. I can see where this may have been more entertaining as a series of short stories. When the overall plot finally emerged, I was already losing interest in the book, and it wasn't enough to fully engage me again.

Also the ending? Eew. That was just not something that I would consider a happy ending.

Before starting this book it’s helpful to know that the story was originally serialized before it was cleaned up and put all together in Sparrow Hill Road. This book jumps between time periods, each chapter isn’t connected in the usually a causes b causes c formula, and it reads like a biography of a dead girl, because that’s exactly what it is. If that’s your thing (and it’s definitely mine) this is an amazing book. It’s beautifully written, sarcastic at just the right moments, and will leave you wanting so much more.