A darkened wood. The rustling of leaves behind you. Shadowy ghosts slipping from the waters. Cries in the night. These are the sounds that will chill your bones as you race through the new adrenaline-pumping, fast-paced thriller by Calvin Demmer.

Lara Adams and her college boyfriend, Ray, are in a rut. Ray’s charismatic charm that had first made him irresistible to her, has begun to dim. So the couple agree to on an adventure as a last-ditch effort to revive their deadened relationship. They travel overseas to China, in what is to be Lara’s first, and possibly last, trek abroad. It isn’t long before the pair find themselves lost in a dense wood, at the height of the Zhong Yuan Jie, or “The Hungry Ghost festival”. It isn’t long before the pair are forced to pull themselves away from their petty issues, and smacked in the face with real, life-threatening drama.

The character structure and development was well-rounded for such a short story. You get a good sense of the dynamic between Lara and Ray, and begin to feel Lara’s disgust and frustration almost from the start of the book, as you tire of their lifeless relationship right along with her. So many questions ran through my mind as I devoured Lara’s plight. I would love to see this story developed into a full-length novel, complete with answers to questions that this intriguing story stirred up in my mind: What city in China are they in exactly (so that if, I ever have the money, I know to definitely never spend it on a trip there), and a more detailed history of this mysterious festival. Where did it originate from?  Is there a legend? What about the former lives of these now-ghosts? After all, they were once human, feeling creatures themselves…

I have very few negative things to say about this book. Despite the few spelling and grammatical errors, the story quickly picks up the pace, and keeps the reader hooked to the finish.