Shutter by Courtney Alameda

As far as it looks this is Alameda's first book. Is there a second book coming? I don't know, but I do know that there is a book called Pitch Dark in progress. It doesn't not appear to go along the lines of Shutter.

A tetrachromat is someone who sees the auras of the undead in a prismatic spectrum. Micheline Helsing just so happens to be able to do this. One of the last decedents of the Van Helsing family, she has trained from square one to be able to eradicate both corporeal and spiritual monsters. Corporeal get taken out by a bullet, while the spiritual by lens. Armed with an SLR camera and aided by her crew; Oliver, Jude, and Ryder they take down all they can. What should have been a "normal" hunt went wrong, and Micheline and the boys get cursed. One that is like a infection, it spreads through their bodies. Micheline has seven days to exorcise the monster or else she and her friends die. To add one more thing to her plate she's seen as a renegade to her also huge monster hunting father. She's ready to take on this crazy week.

Right away I noticed the Fatal Frame, Dracula, and Van Helsing subject of this book. I was really drawn in with the Fatal Frame feel, I played a little of Crimson Butterfly and I really enjoyed it. Plus it's really creepy to have to "hurt" the entity with a camera. My heart broke learning Micheline's back story, you can't say that that girl hasn't felt broken before. Shutter also started with a lot of action and ended the same way. It held my attention completely and I didn't find myself thinking about anything else in general. I probably should have seen a lot of the book coming, there were hints along the way but I just did not grasp them. The ending was very moving, almost to tears but not quite for me. There is potential for a second book, as a "killer" is on the loose and still unknown. How that will go is up to Alameda. I loved the descriptiveness that Alameda provided, I could really picture the way all the gory-bits looked like. What I loved most where the specialness of Micheline's tetrachromatic eyes, and the monsters in the Obscura. This is one of those books that if I were to try and get everything in, it would be a while.

I didn't have a problem with Shutter. The action was all the way through and I loved every minute of it. I wanted to read to the end. *SPOILER-ALERT* I was genuinely sad once the monster was revealed, I did have a feeling that it was going to be someone close to Micheline. I was just hoping that it wasn't going to be her.*SPOILER-ENDED*

This is another book I recommend for everyone, not just teens. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I think everyone could find something to like in it. I do hope there is a second book, I would really like to know who the other bad people are. I enjoyed Alameda's writing and I can see myself reading Shutter again, along with wanting to pick up another book by her. I would love to have this book in my collection.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Page Count: 372 pages (hardcover)

Price: $17.99

Next Book: Deadly Little Secret by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Thanks for reading!
~Jade