Title: Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town
Author: Michael Pryor
Published: July 2019
Publisher: Allen and Unwin
Readership: Young Adult #loveozya
Genre: Contemporary
Rating: ★★★★.6
RRP: $19.99
I received a copy of Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Anton Marin and Rani Cross team up again to fight the ghosts that are plaguing the city. And now there’s a vicious ghost-hunting faction in town as well. A highly entertaining sequel to the smart, snappy and funny Gap Year in Ghost Town.
Lingerers. Moaners. Thugs. Weepers. So many ghosts. Not enough graveyard shifts in a night.
When an extreme ghost plague descends on the city, Anton and Rani must work overtime to keep the city safe and to find the source of the new aggressive ghost outbreak. And it amps up to another level after ghost hunters become the hunted.
Anton and Rani will need all their wits and wiles about them if they are to manage the ghost influx, get to the truth about the Elsewhere and navigate the night with all their limbs intact.
Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town is thoroughly entertaining and full of nail-biting ghostly action and adventure.
Last year, Michael Pryor’s book Gap Year in Ghost Town, was one of the most delightfully fun books I read in 2018 – it was funny and scary and set in Melbourne, which brings me the utmost joy to see my city so faithfully represented in books. Pryor’s main character, Anton, represented all those teens who take a gap year – except his gap year involved fighting ghosts, rather than travelling overseas.
This year, Pyror is back with the second instalment in Anton’s gap year adventures. Anton’s a little older and a little wiser to the ghosts haunting his city. He’s teamed up with Rani and their partnership is about the be tested as the city sees an influx in ghost hauntings around town that are tied in with a group determined to understand ‘Elsewhere’ – the place where the ghosts come from.
Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town really amps up the story that begun in the first book, while maintaining the core of the books – a delightfully witty tale of a teenage boy trying to find his place in a very strange, strange world. I can easily say I spent as much time laughing out loud at the pop-culture references and jokes as I did squirming over the some more spooky elements of ghosts and the people who hunt them.
Anton’s relationships with his family and friends really become a strong focus in this book as he tries to work out where and how he fits, and how he negotiates these social situations is so relevant to today’s day and age. There’s a lot of open conversation about it, which was great.
I will always love this series for the way it so faithfully depicts Melbourne. Pryor’s research into Melbourne’s history is wonderfully woven into the narrative as Anton and Rani stake out some iconic locations in the city, while also surprising me with facts that I knew nothing about (like the Melbourne Observatory) and reminding me that there’s always something to learn about my hometown.
I hope that there’s more to come for these characters and the world Pryor has built up. I am completely on board for more!
Noveltea Corner 