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Kelly Martin

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Dark and Deadly Things (Haunted Houses Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Kelly Martin (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.2 949 ratings

Book 1 of 5: Dark Things

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Since Elise Morgan left her father’s fake reality television show, Dark and Deadly Things, she put the ghost-hunting life behind her, able to comfortably watch from her couch-- next to the ghost of her mother.

When the Halloween episode airs live on television, something goes horribly wrong. Four people end up dead, and Elise's father is the lead suspect in their murders. But Elise knows the truth. She watched the thing that crawled from the darkness. It most certainly wasn't her father.

Abel Hale was in the house when his family died. He felt the icy chill, heard the scraping of nails along the wall, felt the fear and gleeful anticipation as the entity stalked them. The thing that killed the people he loved was not human. There is only one person who believes him, one person who can help him-- Elise, the daughter of the man he blames for his family's death.

Reality mixes with fantasy as Elise and Abel's world turns upside down.

A ghost hunting, haunted house, paranormal romance... with a villain you'll love to hate.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01MYCJC65
Publisher ‏ : ‎ (January 26, 2017)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 26, 2017
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 430 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 200 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #726,207 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2,955 in Ghost Fiction
- #3,193 in Occult Horror
- #5,581 in Occult Fiction

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4.2 949 ratings

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Kelly Martin

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Kelly Martin lives in a possibly haunted house in a small southern town. While she'd like to say paranormal things have only happened to her at her home, it would be a lie...

She is an active member of the Horror Writers Association and an international #1 best selling author in horror, paranormal, contemporary, historical, young adult, and mysteries. All of Kelly's books have one thing in common-- imagine the real world is tilted slightly on its side. You don't really know what's going on, what's missing, but there is a tilt, a hum you can barely hear, telling you that something is off.

Email Kelly Martin at kelly @kellymartinbooks.com (no spaces). Visit her website at www.kellymartinbooks.com

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4.2 out of 5

949 global ratings

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ALY

Dark and Deadly Things

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2021

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This is a great start to a new year! I loved this book so much and I am so glad to have a new author I enjoy. I have not read any other Kelly Martin books before so I am so glad to find this one and love it!!! Elise Morgan can see ghosts but she can not hear them. I think this is an interesting twist already. I love the characters of Elise and Abel. I think the story line was great and moved at a very good pace. I was not bored and I could not put this book down. I can not say this about many books I read, because most of the time, I read several books at a time. This book left me wanting more at the end and was a bit of a cliff hanger for me. I want to know what will happen next. I can't wait to get more into the series and I can see this series as a TV series or a movie. I love the direction this series is going and I love the supernatural! Thank you, Kelly, for writing such a great book and I can't wait for the next book in the series.

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Marion

Good reading fast moving.

Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2024

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I enjoyed this story. It was very enjoyable and I feel would be great reading for a younger audience than I. I felt it needs more explaining as to who is talking and when.

Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2023

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Shudder and shake. Gripping story lines and surprises in store. Can't wait to find out who or what is next on the next adventure.

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Kindle Customer

Warning: Cliffhanger Ahead

Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2019

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After reading several self-published books recently that were totally not ready yet for their time in the sun I was desperate for something/someone who would shine a little light on my field of newly discovered writers. Kelly Martin and her? his? book, Dark and Deadly Things came so close to achieving that.
I received this story free. More often than not when I do that I end up getting exactly what I paid for. In this case I got a very well written story about a young woman who is able to see ghosts and a man who perceives them inn a different manner. The woman, Elise, watches helplessly as her father, her ex-boyfriend (both television ghost hunters) along with their film crew and several members of a family are attacked and, in some cases, killed by a malevolent spiritual form. The young man, Abel, is a surviving member of the ghost-plagued family who approaches Elise for help finding out what actually killed his family. Unfortunately, despite this being set forth as the premise of the story, that's not the story that's told. The duo do go on a ghost hunting expedition but it's at the home of a nurse and her daughter. The scenes in this haunted house are very well written and far more spooky than most ghost stories I've ever read. You get the sense that the characters are really in danger and you care about them surviving their horrifying experience. What you don't get is much of anything related to the initial setup. The characters discuss and wonder about what happened to Abel 's family but they don't do much of anything to answer that question.
The author seems to be a member of the group who believe that unfinished stories will keep a reader coming back indefinitely. I've never appreciated that method of selling or telling a story. If you indicate that you're going to tell a story about this or that then tell if to its conclusion. If you insist on using cliffhangers at least follow the convention of having your main characters be in such great danger that the reader absolutely has to buy the next in the series to find out how they get out of it. In this story Elise and Abel have triumphed over one challenge and they just drive of to face the next one which, again, is not going to be the main problem we're told that they must face. As good as this story is its ending doesn't inspire me to jump up and spend $3.99 for the next in the series especially when I have to assume that the next is going to follow the same pattern.
If you, as a reader, don't mind stories that take several volumes to reach their conclusion then I truly believe you may find this story to be worthy of your reading time. I fully intend to keep an eye out for the future works of this author and the second I see something that interests me and doesn't follow the cliffhanger method of storytelling I'll definitely give it a try.

12 people found this helpful

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Gypsy M

Loved Elise's disillusioned, anti-social, ironic sarcasm, especially when she rambled.

Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2021

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Elise Morgan quit her family’s ghost hunting show shortly after her mother was killed by a ghost. Though her father currently fakes most of the ghostly evidence on his show, Elise knows there are definitely real spirits out there, even if he doesn’t believe her when she tells him that she can see them and has since she was a child. So, while watching the Halloween episode of her father’s show, she sees a dark ghostly mass appear behind him. When the show cuts to static, the family at the house is killed with the exception of the son, and her father is blamed for the murders since he is the most unscathed. Abel, the surviving son from the Halloween episode, comes to Elise in search of answers for what happened to his family.

I love paranormal books focusing on ghost hunters and though Elise technically isn’t a ghost hunter anymore, Abel drags her back into the ghost hunting field in his pursuit for answers and to try to help other families so they don’t share the fate of his own family. With this being book one in a series, not all of the questions get answered and I’m dying to answer so many questions still like what’s up with Abel’s odd power of calmness or is that just Elise’s crush on him? And the mystery of what really happened to Elise’s mother and Abel’s mother, and just what was the black ghostly mass? So many questions because the story of what happened on Halloween night gets carried over as arc over the entire book series, while the story gets turned more into an episodic ghost investigation. I loved Elise. I loved how disillusioned and anti-social she was, and how pain pills made her ramble, and how very hilariously ironic and sarcastic she was. I loved her narrative voice as she berates her past self for being so naïve and how she never follows her own advice or plans. I also loved the ghost in her dorm who has a lot of attitude for a dead girl and am dying for Elise to solve her mystery (since it’s down right disturbing that there’s a female victim who looks that bad on campus, but yet Elise doesn’t seem to think much of it since she’s so inured to the ghosts wandering past her). I liked Abel, too, who seems mysterious and odd, though outwardly friendly and charming to everyone, so I totally want to uncover he truth of him. And I love the chemistry between Elise and Abel, even if he was just dragging her around for his own purposes, regardless of the fact that she needed recuperation after her accident. Since this is a series, this book ends on a cliffhanger, leading in to the next book (though it did resolve the current episodic investigation part). Can’t wait to dig into the next book in the series!

One person found this helpful

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ChristianHG

Difícil manter o foco

Reviewed in Brazil on August 26, 2020

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Não vou fazer um resumo do enredo, isso está escrito no topo da página. Apenas vou dizer que a personagem principal é uma garota de 21 anos que vê fantasmas. Vê, mas não consegue conversar com elas, porque os fantasmas não emitem som e ela não consegue ler lábios. É curioso que alguém com 21 anos, e que viu fantasmas a vida toda, não consiga se comunicar com eles. Mas o problema nem é esse, o problema é que ela parece ser a pessoa mais imatura do mundo, já que passa o livro inteiro se comportando como uma garota de 15 anos, com as inseguranças típicas de uma adolescente. "Ai, será que o Abel gosta de mim?", ou "ai, ele podia ir embora... não, não podia não!", etc e tal. O livro é recheado de comentários sarcásticos e auto-depreciativos, a ponto de incomodar. Atrapalhar a leitura, mesmo. Está havendo algum diálogo, ela começa a viajar em alguma situação e fazer uma longa ironia (que às vezes se estende por três ou quatro parágrafos!) e então a outra pessoa responde. Os comentários foram tão longos que você chega a perder o fio da meada: "sobre o quê eles estavam falando, mesmo?!". Uma outra coisa que incomoda é que a moça, que participava de um programa de TV chamado "Deadly And Dark Things" (!) é praticamente uma Beatle! Sim, porque onde quer que ela vá, tem algum "paparazzi", algum fotógrafo, algum repórter, querendo cercá-la -- o que não faz o menor sentido, já que o tal programa de TV estava em decadência e ela já tinha saído da TV há anos. Sério, acho que nem os Beatles no auge da Beatlemania eram tão incomodados assim. Por fim: há um monte de pontas soltas na estória; a autora, obviamente, já escreveu pensando em "esticar" o livro em vários volumes mais. Só espero que eles sejam melhores. Não é possível que a mulher de 21 anos continuará se comportando como uma adolescente de 16, com sarcasmo o tempo inteiro e que é uma Beatle. Na verdade, bem, acho que não vou ler o próximo.

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BigBaffie

Wow

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 29, 2020

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I got this book via kindle unlimited and to be honest, I didn't think it was going to be very good.

I'm glad to say that I was wrong.

It's really quite gripping and deep in interesting characters. It's an introduction to all the main characters, I hope. I think that this is going to be a good series. I will let you know as I go along. Hopefully, it will be good for you too.

DaisyDaisy

Reviewing whole series!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 16, 2020

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I thought this was going to be a quick, predictable read, but a few revelations actually took me by surprise. I love how it all came together and I felt satisfied with the conclusions.
There are also some truly creepy episodes in all of the books that freaked me out a bit and made me check there was nothing creeping about at the end of my bed.
However, while I really enjoyed the story I do feel a bit ripped off paying for instalments that are expensive for amount of pages I actually got. There is a lot of filler in all the books (I don't care who sleeps where or how many times she doubts herself) that I really could have done without. I would have much preferred one big book with a lot of the repetiton left out and paid less for a standard length novel.

Mrs. Helen Stothard

This gave me shivers

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 20, 2017

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This book pulled me in, and whilst I know it will be several books before we get the answer, I was hooked. It had the same effect on me as a good horror movie, I didn't want to go down a dark hallway in the house. There's a slimy character you will love to hate, a heroine you want to hug, and a hero you want to know more about. Not to mention an interesting ghost called Naked Girl.

Well written chill inspiring,

Rose

If truth be told

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 11, 2020

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You know, if truth be told I really wanted to give this book full marks and almost did too. However, the idea of blackmail really does not appeal to me. So, I didn’t like the ending. Also, why didn’t she just block Silas’s messages if she hated him so much? She’s a typical young person and this is a comedy horror for young people, a kind of horror/chick lit kind of book series. I don’t think I’ll be carrying on with it even though I did find parts of it amusing.

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Dark and Deadly Things (Haunted Houses Book 1) Kindle Edition

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