Reviewed by Diana Coyle
Siblings, Mandy and Ben, are living in a foster house owned by Mrs. Bellows in “Blood on the Icehouse Wall” by Jessica Meats. These two are close with each other and try to help each other with life’s ups and downs as they arise. The oddest thing is that neither of them could ever prepare themselves for something they found out about Ben. One particular evening, he is very unsettled and feels that he needs to go outside because he is being pulled by an invisible source. As he’s out in the woods going for a jog, Ben sends a text to Mandy to come outside because he found something he needs to show her. When Mandy meets up with him, he’s acting odd, but shows her these cryptic ruin markers on a building that everyone refers to as the Icehouse. Things quickly start unfolding, and both are thrown into a supernatural world of witches and werewolves as they stumble upon a dead body in the woods and someone leaning over that body. Did this person kill the man lying on the ground? What are the cryptic ruin messages that are painted, in what seems to be blood, on the Icehouse? What do they find out about Ben? Purchase Here.
Although this was a very creative storyline, I was disappointed that it seems to move way too slow for my taste. Considering there were a lot of things happening in the scenes, the plot just moved too slowly to take it to the next scene. Unfortunately, this made engaging with the characters and the storyline a bit of a task for me.
Also, there were quite a few characters throughout this book, and many introductions happened at the very beginning. It took a bit of deciphering to see who was an ally and who was the enemy. When the story finally started to reveal a main development for Ben, something didn’t fit for me in the behaviors he was displaying. This also made me still feel disconnected to him even though I wanted to connect with him and Mandy.
I read that Jessica Meats loves writing about strong female characters, and there were two females, Mandy and Elizabeth, who were both independently strong throughout the story. So much so, I felt they were in constant competition over who would succeed in ruling over the other female character. There was constant high energy and tension whenever these two were in a scene together.
Although it says this is book one of one of The Writings on the Well, at the end of the story it mentions that a conclusion book will follow in this series.
Jessica Meats works in the IT industry. She is a UK-based author of Science Fiction and Fantasy books. Since 2009, she has produced a variety of novels for both adults and young adults.
Overall, “Blood on the Icehouse Wall” by Jessica Meats is a Contemporary Fantasy novel geared for teens and young adults. It is heavily wrapped around a supernatural theme with intriguing concepts of the cryptic ruins that both Ben and Mandy stumbled upon. Readers who enjoyed this story can eagerly look forward to another installment to conclude this series.