Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Content: Strong Language, talk of sex and sexual acts


Rose Marshall died in 1952 in Buckley Township, Michigan, run off the road by a man named Bobby Cross—a man who had sold his soul to live forever, and intended to use her death to pay the price of his immortality. Trouble was, he didn’t ask Rose what she thought of the idea.

It’s been more than sixty years since that night, and she’s still sixteen, and she’s still running.

They have names for her all over the country: the Girl in the Diner. The Phantom Prom Date. The Girl in the Green Silk Gown.

Sparrow Hill Road is the first book I've read by Seanan McGuire and I liked it. The story is original for an urban fantasy and I really appreciated that about the book. The combination of ghost story and urban fantasy was what really made me want to read this book in the first place and the book really delivered in that aspect. Rose was pretty likable as the main character and I also really liked some of the supporting characters.

The book had a couple of weaknesses for me, one being the format. It's written as a bunch of different stories instead of one continuous story with some connecting threads running through the whole book. It is Rose's story after all, so she is relating different things that have happened since she died, with a small part being dedicated to what her life was like before she died, and also how she died. I wasn't too crazy about the way it jumped around from one time to another, sometimes in the middle of one of the stories. It wasn't a complete turn off, but it isn't one of my favorite types of storytelling.

There was also the whole bit about Rose paying her way sometimes with sex. This was the one thing in the book that bothered me the most. Because Rose died on the road in a car accident, that resulted in her becoming a road ghost who hitchhikes her way across the country. If she can convince the driver to loan her his jacket or coat (any type of outwear will do) she can borrow a bit of that persons mortality for a little while. This results in her being able to actually have a mortal body for a short time period. Sometimes Rose would hitch a ride and the driver would expect something in return and she would trade sex for the ride. That's just too close to prostitution for my liking. However it was only mentioned a couple of times in the book and no details were given.

The ghost world in this book feels a lot like a purgatory. Rose can't see past it because she is stuck there and it is her reality. She knows a lot of ghosts end up traveling the ghost road, sometimes with her help, onto another place, but she doubts that it is any better than where she is. She has lost any faith that there is a better place, or that there is a God, although she does pray to the God she doubts exists several times in the book. I enjoyed this aspect of the book and under the circumstances, could understand why Rose felt the way she did, even though at this point, I think there is a lot she doesn't know or understand.

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for giving me a copy of this book to review.

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