Review: Texas Gothic

Texas Gothic, by Rosemary Clement-Moore. The GoodReads summary:

Amy Goodnight's family is far from normal. She comes from a line of witches, but tries her best to stay far outside the family business. Her summer gig? Ranch-sitting for her aunt with her wacky but beautiful sister. Only the Goodnight Ranch is even less normal than it normally is. Bodies are being discovered, a ghost is on the prowl, and everywhere she turns, the hot neighbor cowboy is in her face.

Even though the reviews I read about this book were kinda mixed, I still knew that it would be a book I would totally enjoy. Isn’t it weird how that happens sometimes? And I was proved right about liking it from the first sentence: “The goat was in the tree again”--I don’t know what else I could ask for in a first sentence. The whole first chapter is probably one of my favorites that I’ve read recently. Let me give you a teaser: it involves Amy chasing a cow out of her yard in her underwear and (of course) running into a hot cowboy while she’s doing it.

I loved Amy so much. She’s one of those characters that I know without a doubt I would be friends with if she were real. She’s funny and sarcastic and level-headed; she’s confident and brave without doing completely reckless things (and the reckless things she does do she has a reason for). Ben is a hot cowboy, so that’s pretty much all I needed to know to fall in love. He’s cranky and uptight (for fairly good reasons), but he’s always a gentlemen and he’s there when it counts. And hooray for no insta-love! Amy and Ben argue a lot throughout the book, but it’s, you know, the sexual-tension-building kind of arguing, so I was on board.

This book was a mystery/ghost/witch story--which I was so, so happy about. I love mysteries, and I’m always glad when they pop up in YA. This was more of a Scooby-Doo or Nancy Drew kind of mystery though, so don’t go into it expecting a complicated and suspenseful mystery where you don’t know who the bad guy is until the very end.

Overall, I really liked this book. Amy was such a great character (and she graduated from high school, so it’s older YA--yay!) and I never got tired of her or annoyed. The mystery was a lot of fun and I loved that Amy and her sister are witches. Basically, this book was a win all around for me.