I really enjoyed this story. I found the storyline captivating and the character of Charlie Palmer so interesting. Nathan Was an interesting and believable choice for the main character and the neighbour storyline was fantastic. Thanks so much to the publisher and netgalley for the arc.

As an adult reading a children's book, this was a quick and easy read. Had my attention fully from the first chapter. I think children will have no trouble understanding and loving it.
But I felt it was too short and so many lack much characters.
I loved the cover though

ARC provided by publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The opening first lines really did grasp my attention fully and held it throughout the first chapter. This could have been an interesting story which I think would have been entertaining for the age range it is written for. This however in my opinion will not end up being a favourite from the genre. There was unfortunately a lack of any emotional connection to the characters for me and this is a completely plot driven adventure story, although I use adventure loosely. If this had been a little longer with characters being fleshed out more I think this could have been something special. I will say though it did have quite a lovely ending.

This is a quick easy read which I think children will have no trouble understanding and could possibly enjoy reading at the time, just sadly a tad forgettable once finished.

I might be in the minority here, but as an adult reading a children's book, I wasn't really caught up in the storyline past the first chapter. The way the story is written, we meet Nathan who has a ghost named Charlie for a friend on the first page, and we don't know much about how this meeting came to be. A catchy first line yes, but a catchy first few chapters, no - not for me, at least. Also in the first chapter, we take Charlie's word for it that he was murdered and that the neighbours, the Kimbles, are a dubious lot and must be stopped. The following chapters expose some family dynamics in Nathan's family, but to me, it derailed the story.

Aside from the major issue of the author's choice of the story's starting point, there was the choice of present-tense narrative. Honestly, I don't like it in most genres, children's books and historical fiction chief amongst them. I feel like unless it's absolutely necessary to the pace of the plot, good old-fashioned past tense is fine by me. Unfortunately, the story's pace was lagging behind and the present tense did nothing to push it forward.

I really wanted to like this book as much as I liked its cover.

Thank you, NetGalley and Matador, for the ARC.