Review: Phantasma

Phantasma by Kaylie Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Ophelia was now the eldest Grimm. A dead mother made her much more than an orphan. 

Phantasma opens with Ophelia's mother dying in the night, causing Ophelia to hurry and perform a ceremony where she is transferred her mother's magic. Her younger sister Genevieve, has always wanted to leave their family necromancy business behind, resenting how it tied Ophelia to Grimm Manor, their home. However, Ophelia won't turn her back on centuries of family history and intends to take over the business of helping people communicate with the dead. Until bankers show up and suddenly they only have a few weeks to pay off a severely due loan their mother inexplicable took out, before they lose Grimm Manor to the bank. Ophelia senses that Genevieve knows more than she's telling and when she leaves a note saying not to worry and she'll be back in a couple weeks, Ophelia just knows Genevieve has entered Phantasma, a haunted mansion just arrived in New Orleans, and plans on entering herself to find Genevieve. 

For as long as she could remember, the voice had been there, in the darkest corners of her mind, telling her to walk through certain doorways or her entire family would perish. 

This started off with a really cool concept, a traveling haunted mansion run by devils where contestants can enter and try to make it through levels based on the nine Circles of Hell, where if they are the last person standing, they'll receive a Devil's Grant (basically a wish granted). There's explanation of paranormal hierarchy, with Ghosts, Apparitions, Phantoms, Devils, Specters, and the like, which I thought was going to lead to a pretty detailed structured rich world. Ophelia even enters the mansion pretty early, around 15% to get the story rolling right away. However, I kind of found a lot of the elements added to create atmosphere ended up feeling a lot like window-dressing, leaving me ultimately disappointed in the lack of depth. 

The golden bauble had been in her family for generations, enchanted with a powerful magic that bound it to its wearer. 

This takes place in New Orleans but as the vast majority of the story is inside the Phantasma mansion, you won't get the feel for the city. I don't remember the time period being explicitly mentioned but with Ophelia riding in carriages and a motor vehicle being a sensation, along with her dresses and male attire of vests mentioned, it seems like it's supposed to be Victorian era. But the vernacular feels pretty modern, ex. - “I fucked his best friend on the back of a float”, “Who in the unholy fuck is knocking on peoples’ doors this early in the morning?”, and “For fuck’s sake,”. I'm guessing the clothes are Victorian era to help set the Gothic tone this was mentioned as having but Gothic stories are all about atmosphere, usually a big chunk created from the restrictions of the time, and well, language plays a decent part of helping to mesh the time period with the reader and I can't say I felt the Gothic atmosphere at all, the clothes were window-dressing. 

Phantasma. The Devil’s Manor. A place often spoken about in whispered rumors and haunting cautionary tales in the dark. 

The romance comes in when a Phantom named Blackwell, who Ophelia actually met before entering Phantasma, makes a bargain with her, he'll help Ophelia get past the levels if she helps him find a heart and key, what he told her needed to be set free from Phantasma when they first met but can't remember saying. Blackwell has no memory of existing outside of Phantasma but picks someone every time the mansion starts it's games to try and help him get free. A locket Ophelia wears around her neck that has been passed down through generations of women in her family warms when it's around Blackwell and she takes this as sign to trust him. She's also pretty physically attracted to him. You probably can tell where this is leading and a little before the half-way point, we start to get “Good Girl” scenes. The dirty talk was there but the emotion was not for me, there just wasn't enough emotional or relationship depth developed and as such, all those physical scenes may have used the trendy hot words but they were window-dressing and I found my eyes glazing over whenever the clothes came off. 

“Ophelia,” he repeated, tasting every syllable. Her name on his tongue sounded like a wicked prayer. “You are exactly the person I’ve been waiting for.” 

Along with being a lifelong romance fan, I've been a lifelong horror fan, why I was so excited for this but while the levels would occasionally have some gory descriptions of deaths, window-dressing in place of any actually feelings of horror, tension, or fear. This felt more New Adult to me, in regards to maturity of characters and tone and I'd put Christopher Pike books ahead on the feeling horror scale. The levels Ophelia has to complete don't last very long and while we get to know some other contestants and devils, they're more blip on the radar secondary characters. As we raced through the trials when it's time to complete them, lingered on Ophelia wandering through the mansion trying to find what Blackwell's looking for, and hopped from physical scene to physical scene between the two, I felt the middle second half started to feel stretched out. 

A deep sense of dread began to sink into her gut that being within Phantasma wasn’t going to be the thing that broke her. 

The ending really rushed Ophelia's and Genevieve's plot, but delivered on answers. Ophelia learns some family secrets and what Blackwell's story really is, and while it is pretty obvious (I would say blindingly obvious and Ophelia should have realized much sooner) what the answer was to what connects and could solve Blackwell's issue, it was an enjoyable plot thread. Once Ophelia and Blackwell figure out some things, the ending again feels a bit rushed as it jumps to give readers a quick look at where things are and are headed. One element that I thought worked really well and want to mention is Ophelia's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, since this was a paranormal book, I was wondering where this element was headed. Ophelia hears a “Shadow Voice” in her head that causes her to have to do things in threes, otherwise the voice says her family will die. The story showed how this tormented Ophelia and the struggle of how living with such a form of OCD can effect people and I thought how Ophelia battled it showed a care and respect for this aspect of her character. 

While I found a lot of elements to be window-dressing and the romance didn't have the depth to deliver the emotional connection I like to feel from my romance leads, others who like a little descriptive gore without the deep emotional horror feel, trendy dirty talk scenes, and a New Adult vibe, might want to give this lighter horror and romance mash-up a try.

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