Title: The Supers (The Supers: Book One)
Author: Sean Michael
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press/Dreamspun Beyond
Length: 242 Pages
Category: Paranormal
At a Glance: The Supers delivered a fairly fascinating paranormal plot featuring a nice little mystery and involving some ghosts in an abandoned hospital.
Reviewed By: Lindsey
Blurb: Hunting ghosts and finding more than they bargained for.
Blaine Franks is a member of the paranormal research group the Supernatural Explorers. When the group loses their techie to a cross-country move, newly graduated Flynn Huntington gets the job. Flynn fits in with the guys right off the bat, but when it comes to him and Blaine, it’s more than just getting along.
Things heat up between Blaine and Flynn as they explore their first haunted building, an abandoned hospital, together. Their relationship isn’t all that progresses, though, and soon it seems that an odd bite on Blaine’s neck has become much more.
Hitchhiking ghosts, a tragic love story forgotten by time, and the mystery of room 204 round out a romance where the things that go bump in the night are real.
Review: What do you get when you read a book about a team of five gay ghost hunters, including a medium and a newbie tech guy/scientist, who are looking to find something amazing in an abandoned hospital where a mass murder happened? A pretty fascinating paranormal plot and a fun little mystery.
Blaine is the resident medium/psychic. He has always sensed spirits, and even to some degree can hear them and get a general feeling for what is happening in the spiritual realm. When Flynn joins the team, his abilities are ratcheted up and some crazy things start going down, with Blaine at the center of the crazy.
Flynn is not just your average tech guy, he is a scientist, and his goal is to get as much data as he can. He is inquisitive and all about questions and research. He is adorably excited to join the Supernatural Explorers, and can’t contain his enthusiasm. When some freaky things start occurring, he naturally wants to gather as much information as possible through a variety of methods, sometimes driving Blaine batty in the process.
It’s clear from the initial encounter that there is more to their connection than the mutual desire to prove ghosts exist, but the reader isn’t quite sure what it is, and that connection becomes part of the greater mystery.
The story took a while to draw me in. While it was setting the foundation for what was to come, the pacing was a little on the slower side for my tastes. I wasn’t altogether sold until about a quarter of the way through, when the action picked up, but once that happened, I was all in and gobbled up the rest of the story, wanting to know what the heck was happening to Blaine, what Flynn’s role and their connection had to do with it, and how it would all play out.
The Supers was mostly light-hearted in that the crew of the Supernatural Explorers were all jokesters, but there were definite creepy scenes added to the mix. Some even made my skin crawl. It made for an interesting dichotomy, these sort-of-adorkable guys caught in a nightmare, and trying desperately to figure out what was happening before one of their own falls prey to more danger.
Though I really enjoyed the ghost portion of the plot, and the characters were fleshed out, it didn’t all work for me—mostly the romantic portion, especially the dialogue between Blaine and Flynn. There were several phrases and word choices repeated throughout that I could have done without, as well as repetitive exchanges going over the same topics and saying the same things to each other. In all honesty their interchange was just not to my taste; at times it seemed forced and didn’t quite flow right, like what was being said didn’t quite fit the situation and seemed out of place. When the rest of the guys were in the picture, it created more of a balance, but when it was Flynn and Blaine, solo, it was more awkward than anything else.
Lucky for me the romantic portion of the book took a backseat, with the focus surrounding the ghosts from room 204. Seeing as I tend to really delight in books that keep me guessing, which The Supers definitely did just that, I ended up quite liking this book and would totally recommend it for the paranormal ghost story lovers out there.
You can buy The Supers here:
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