It’s only been a cou­ple of weeks since the book’s release, but reviews are already com­ing in. And — huz­zah — won­der­fully detailed and pos­i­tive reviews to boot! Who knows how long this will keep up, but for now, I’m shar­ing the love.

Here’s what Char­lie Court­land at Bitsy Bling Books had to say:
Five Stars for Dark­house — a Rainy Sum­mer­time Read

“I started this book on a chilly Pacific North­west after­noon and read until 3 am. I didn’t antic­i­pate get­ting hooked, but the pac­ing cre­ated an irre­sistible page-turner that had me read­ing until my eyes ached. Who needs sleep? Sleep is over-rated! Dark­house is seduc­tively enter­tain­ing and I’m con­vinced that it has some secret ingre­di­ent (like the sauce on a Big Mac or the cof­fee beans at Star­bucks) that makes it imme­di­ately addic­tive. Red Fox is com­ing out soon and I sim­ply can’t wait (okay, maybe I’m beg­ging a lit­tle) for the author to send me an advanced copy. What makes it so good? Perry is a reli­able char­ac­ter: flawed, inse­cure, impul­sive, but despite her own road­blocks she has a deter­mi­na­tion that the audi­ence can clearly see even if she does not (yet). It is her self-awareness that makes the char­ac­ter appeal­ing, trust­wor­thy and hon­est. Her vul­ner­a­bil­ity pro­vides sym­pa­thy with­out demand­ing pity. Dex is sim­i­lar and it is not sur­pris­ing that the Clown Lady insin­u­ates Perry and Dex are cut from the same cloth. Their con­tra­dic­tions show strength of char­ac­ter and reveals a great deal about the indi­vid­u­als. For exam­ple, Dex admits he lies and by doing so dis­proves he’s a liar because he con­fesses to the deceit. A true liar would never will­ingly reveal this dep­re­cat­ing detail.

The para­nor­mal ele­ments and spook fac­tor are unique and pro­vide just enough to let the imag­i­na­tion cre­ate the set­ting with­out com­ing across as silly, imma­ture or easy to dis­missed. The creepi­ness I expe­ri­enced was real and I loved the light­house scenes. The splat­ter­ing men­tions of pop cul­ture ref­er­ences were excel­lent and worked to cre­ate a men­tal map of the char­ac­ters per­cep­tion and think­ing. I knew where they were com­ing from, what images came to mind dur­ing their expe­ri­ences, and how they related to the world unfold­ing in front of them.

Frankly, I’m sur­prised by the lower rat­ings received at places such as Goodreads because this con­tem­po­rary humor­ous spook fest might read fast-paced and easy, which it does, but the voice is not absent of sub­stance. The lan­guage doesn’t try too hard to con­vince intel­li­gence and by doing so, is smartly com­posed to do what a story should, enter­tain. Don’t get me wrong, there is mean­ing here, but the fact that the story isn’t try­ing so hard to show (or prove it) makes it that much more clever. Dark­house is an exam­ple of a con­fi­dent and assured author’s ‘voice.’ The writer con­nects with the char­ac­ters, deeply under­stand­ing and chan­nel­ing them onto the page. By the end I was con­vinced Perry was writ­ing this story. I have no doubt that Perry and Dex are real–and they live through author Karina Halle.”

And Can­dice over at the Baked in Van­cou­ver blog included pic­tures(!) in her cute review. Here are some excerpts:

“Right from the start the main char­ac­ter, Perry Palomino, sucks you in with her relat­able and sar­cas­tic personality.”

“Not only had Dark­house turned me into a sexy bitch, but it also left me crav­ing answers. I con­tem­plated pay­ing Karina to tell me what hap­pens at the end, but I know it will be far more inter­est­ing to explore and grow with these char­ac­ters in the books to come. This series will no doubt have more twists then I can even begin to antic­i­pate right now — and that is what a series should be. Addicting.”