Hawthorn Inn

The Catalyst #1

by Heidi Willard

Jack Erikson doesn't have great expectations when his mother moves them to an old decrepit inn in a town just as musty, but he's unprepared for the oddities that start springing out of the rotten woodwork. New friends introduce him to legends and rumors that have swirled around the inn since time-immemorial, and he finds plenty of proof to believe them as strange noises and twisted shadows stalk the halls.

Worst of all, his estranged grandfather has invited himself to join them at the inn. Creepy doesn't begin to describe that black-cloaked gentleman with the pale skin and weird, ever-constant glasses. Old secrets, mysterious sealed-up rooms and creeping shadows abound as Jack tries to manage his new life at Hawthorn Inn.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, Paranormal, Amazon, Contemporary, Young Adult

270 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Born near the last wilds of northeastern Washington state, Heidi Willard now resides in the lower state with her husband and insane cats. She writes in the paranormal and fantasy (and sometimes both) genres. She always enjoys a good chat with fans and book junkies, so feel free to drop her a line.

Visit her at her website at heidiwillard.com
Sign up for her newsletter at eepurl.com/V3BhL

Reviews

[Cheryl Landmark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the promising premise, I really struggled to get through this one. I'm a sucker for finishing books, so I soldiered on, even though I was tempted to discontinue reading a number of times.

This book seriously, and I mean uber-seriously, needed a good editor to go through it with a fine-toothed comb. There were tons of issues with missing words and punctuation, extra words where they weren't needed, very repetitive phrases and words, wrong words used such as peak for peek and the infamous misuse of "their" instead of "there" or "they're". This sentence was really cringe-worthy--"Their just their to scare away vandals and people who are too curious."

Everyone was totally "informed" and "teased" throughout the book. And, there was so much eye rolling going on, I expected to see dozens of eyeballs littering the ground by the end of the story! Honestly, I cringed and had to refrain from rolling my own eyes every time I came across that phrase. It was just far too repetitive and annoying.

The story did have potential. Some of the descriptions of the old inn and its gloomy surroundings were quite well-done and invoked feelings of spookiness and danger. It took a while, however, for Jack's and Kyle's explorations to assume any kind of thrilling adventure. Also, the mystery surrounding Jack's strange grandfather left far too many unanswered questions at the end.

Unless the author has drastically improved the editing on the subsequent books in this series, I don't think I will be rushing out to buy the next one any time soon. I love to support Indie authors, but the story has to spark and keep my interest, and I don't want to have to mentally edit every second line as I read through it. That definitely takes away from my enjoyment of a book.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read but I would say it's really aimed at the Youth market as opposed to adults.
In DIRE need of heavy editing - spelling, punctuation & grammatical errors abound. The author also needs to expand their vocabulary as repetitive words grated. I felt like I needed to be a teacher with a heavy handed use of the old red pen!

[Marjolein (UrlPhantomhive) · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

After Jack moves with his mother to an old inn strange things happen. Including his grandfather who's there out of nowhere.

Intended I think for a somewhat younger, possibly MG audience, as the mystery was not spectacular, I still found it quite enjoyable. A haunted house, with mysterious hidden entrances and rooms. I would have loved it as a kid. This being said, I didn't like the fact that this book didn't seem to have an ending. Many of the great questions, like what exactly is his grandfather remain unanswered. Which probably would have been less of a problem had the author not referred to there being something for the course of the whole book. I hate it when the first book does this, since it feels like a trap to buy the other books in the series, especially since this was an Amazon freeby. (Honestly, if I liked the book even with some kind of closure, I'd read the sequel)

Another thing was the editing. I'm not a native English speaker so I'm far from the right person to address this, but I felt many sentences were missing words or didn't seem to make that much sense. I checked with other reviewers, and they apparently had the same problem, so it's not just me. It would be nice should an editor take a look at it.

Hawthorn Inn is the first book in the Catalyst series.

[Emily G · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book for free from Amazon, which is probably a marketing ploy to hook you and then get you to buy the rest of the series. I won't be and this is why:

I really enjoyed the story, it did keep me hooked. I liked the characters and the story was just getting to an interesting point when it ended. The reason I don't want to spend actual money on reading more, is that this book is so very poorly edited! Wrong words are used constantly e.g. haggled instead of hassled, through when it should have been threw. There are spelling mistakes throughout, odd words thrown in that shouldn't be there. It ruined the whole reading experience for me, which is such a shame because like I said I liked the story itself. 2.5 stars

[Deanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay. Lots of editing errors.

My biggest beef: every elementary school kid knows that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end. This story had a beginning and a middle, but no end, as the book stopped very abruptly, with absolutely no resolution whatsoever. The next book can't possibly be a sequel. It will be more of a requirement, since the story has no ending so far. I might read more of the series at a later date, because I did enjoy the premise. But in all honesty, I'm a bit annoyed with the author for seemingly writing a story and then chopping it up into pieces and selling it a bit at a time. Seems a bit cheap and unfair to me.

[Kara Axt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting

I read this book a while back but cannot stop thinking about it. It is haunting me to read it again and I am about to do just that. No book series has had that sort of affect on me, I am in love with this series. I recommend this book for any YA lover! It keeps you hooked and is such a fluent read. If I could give it more than 5 stars I would. This is one of those books that you wish could be turned into a movie because of the stunning picture it paints in your head. So well done!

[Shannon Melson · Rating 1 out of 5]

could not bring
myself to finish. it bored me to death.

[Sophie Constable · Rating 1 out of 5]

Probably closer to a 1.5 but I can't find enough good things to justify rounding up.

For starters, I don't think I'm the audience for this book. I think I'm just too old for this book (which feels weird to say) and that someone who is more my sister's age (11) would probably enjoy this book a whole lot more than I did. It was very slow and the majority of this book is set up for the rest of the series with things only really happening in the last 10% of the book. The writing also felt rather plain and that along with the character ages (13/14) meant that I feel like this book is meant for the younger side of YA. I also wasn't fully convinced by some of the character interactions and some of the dialogue just didn't quite feel natural. I don't really want to say that this book was disappointing (I didn't have high hopes anyway) or that it was bad as I do just think I am just not the audience for this book.

[Annemarie Groves · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly like many reviewers this book is a big let down. After reading the pages riddles with errors (typographical, grammatical, out of place words, misgenderisation) I have no clue what the plot was supposed to be, rather than a thriller in its own right it was more of a rambling prologue. There are no conclusions, reasonings, discovery of the book elements to the actions set. I am not sure of the language style used is designed for pre-teen or young adult readers or the nativity/youth of the author. I did finish the book (unlike Moby Dick) but like Moby Dick it almost killed my desire to read in general.

[Rebecca Joy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried with this book. I really did. It was a book I picked up and put down (via kindle) over and over again. This kind of series is right up my alley. I love supernatural mysteries, and wanted so badly to like this book. It was painfully hard to get through. I found myself just powering through because I hate to not finish. The story was oddly repetitive and the story never really seemed to move anywhere. It felt like in the last two chapters they rushed to put some action to draw readers into the sequel, but even that wasn’t enough to make me want to attempt the next book. If this is a genre you usually seek out, I would recommend looking elsewhere.

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creepy beginning

The book is about a boy names Jack, his mother, and his creepy grandfather. The book begins with the mother buying Hawthorne Inn and then weird things happen. Shadows and poor Jack and his odd grandfather. Looking forward to the next two books in the series.

[Beverly E · Rating 2 out of 5]

As others have pointed out, this book really, really needed an editor. Did the author even read over it when she was done? Should be edited and then marketed for YA reader. I had to stop reading very early in... good premise, bad execution.

[Cindy Elliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Proof read

This is a good story, but REALLY needs a Proof reader... lots of words spelled wrong, and lots of "out of place" words that, had there been a proof reader, would have been caught ..

[Theresa · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's very rare that I give up on a book but this one was boring me to tears so I decided not to finish it. Maybe it has an amazing ending? I'll never know...

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

fun characters. good suspense. interesting mystery.
typos :(

[Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

A definite wait

Must say I am a bit left out in the cold, this must be a long series. Book one tells you absolutely nothing. No spoilers here

[Sara Lemons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read

I liked the pace of this book. I was left wanting to find out what would happen next. A little disappointed in the ending but loved it.

[Vicki Layne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exciting and excellent reading

The author is an suburb author. She caught my attention and I was drawn into the story. I enjoyed the novel

[Janice Stinnett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok

The book had some good parts but there were to many parts that stalled. There were also more questions than answers but not in a good way. I found myself skimming towards the end just to finish it. I will probably read the second book but if it doesn't pick up I doubt I could finish the series

[Cecilia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Book review as written for all stories end:

It is really hard for me not to finish a book, and I had to push myself to finish it. The plot seems amazing. It really does. I think that’s what initially drew me in. And I think the book has potential, but it seems to me that the author added a lot of filler so that this could turn into a book series. I think that with the right editing, the author could have made this book amazing.

I absolutely hated that the book drug on and on and never did you find out what the grandfather was. I think in order to actually hook people in, it would have been best to say what they were at the end of the book. But to leave it unanswered was not cool. I know I will not buy any of the other books in this series, and it bothers me that I will have to leave that unanswered.

Another thing that I really didn’t like was the style of writing. It read more like a really long role-play post than a novel. I don’t know if most people would understand what I mean by role-play post, but I really don’t know any other way to describe it.

Another thing I really didn’t like was the characters. I wasn’t able to connect with any of them. I can’t even remember their names - except Jack’s but that’s probably because I read it on the excerpt just now. I just remember that the main character, Jack, was really sullen, annoying and rude. His friend, the other boy, he started off as funny but later on turned just as annoying as Jack. And it seemed to me that Jack and his mom thought of him as a piece of gum stuck to a shoe.

And what was up with the mom? Okay, so she wasn’t absent like many parents in YA books, but she might as well have been. Jack is supposed to have been home-schooled but you don’t see any of that in the book - yet she’s completely okay with Jack doing his “friend’s” homework.

The only interesting character, I found, was the grandfather and it was mostly because he was mysterious.

[Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jack, his Mum and Grandfather buy the Hawthorn Inn; a mysterious old inn in a small American town which the locals seem to be fascinated with. Especially Jack’s new friend Kyle who is desperate to explore the inn.

Initially I was more intrigued by the Grandfather’s strange actions and the fact that Jack had only met him a few days prior to the beginning the of the story.

Whilst away from home and internet-less, this was a book that had been on my kindle for a long time, and that I decided to read without access to the blurb. I found this to be an interesting approach to reading, as I never knew what I would get and I probably read a few titles that I wouldn’t have done otherwise.

I found the pace of the plot incredibly slow, so much so that after finishing Hawthorn Inn I’m still not sure where the plot was going or what actually happened. The build-up of suspense could have been a lot quicker, but I can appreciate that the author is probably playing the long game and setting the scene for the rest of the series. But for me, it just wasn’t enough of a hook.

It isn’t all negative though, the actual writing was very good; here was lots of very good, very vivid description and well written characters with believable dialogue.

[William Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

If your looking for adventure with a large side of mystery, Hawthorn Inn is just what you are
looking for. I myself, found Hawthorn Inn to be a great read. I felt the story line caught my
attention right from the very start. Mr Prye aka grandpa was probably my favorite character
in this book and I say this because from the beginning of the book when you meet him. You
can tell that grandpa is a very mysterious person and for me, I not real sure if he is a living
person or if he is from a paranormal world. I would say that grandpa was a big reason for me
to finish this book, Although this was what if feel is a short book, it gives you just enough
story line to draw the reader in for a much larger grand adventure that lays awaiting in the
Catalyst.
I would personally recommend this book to any young adult or adults in general. Again
if you are looking for an adventure, Hawthorn Inn may just be what your looking for. As a side
note: I did find several grammatical errors in this story and the author is well aware of this as
well. Yes there are many errors but I myself was able to overlook them and still enjoy the
story, I hope that you will be able to also.

[Brandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cute story about a young boy and his mother move to an old Inn called the Hawthorne Inn along with his grandfather he has never met. When they move in everything starts off ok but strange and as time goes on things get weirder and weirder and it gets worse when he makes friends with another boy who wants nothing more than to find dark hidden secrets that are hidden in a boarded off area of the INN. It seems that all of the weird and strange is coming from his grandfather until one night when the boys sneak into the boarded up side and find nothing short of monsters. As they make it out barely with their lives they find out that their mothers have been frantic about their whereabouts and are both grounded for life......Then the book ends....I am hopeing that their is another book that follows this one and in fact will go look now :)

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Source: Downloaded for free from Amazon.co.uk)

This wasn’t a bad story; I just think it was maybe intended for a younger audience.

The characters in this behaved like you’d expect young boys to behave. They didn’t always make logical decisions, but as I said, they behaved like you’d expect young boys to behave, and young boys (and girls) are not necessarily logical.

The storyline in this was okay, I just found it a little dull, but like I said, I think this was just because it was maybe aimed at a younger audience? Maybe 8 to 11-year-olds?
I think this was supposed to be creepy, but I didn’t find it all that creepy, and the boy’s discovery at the end, which they then decided to hide, was probably the most interesting thing in the whole book. I don’t think I want to continue with this series.
5 out of 10

[Mandy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book may have been written for a much younger audience, but I felt that the basis for the story was never fully explained. This book felt like set up for a good story, but that was all, a set up (like watching a preview to a movie and then the film never coming out). I can only wonder that more of Jack and his mom's story will be explained in the following books in the series but this one did not catch my attention enough to continue on.

[Addey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I apparently read this before. I didn't remember any of it. I just kept coming across book marks....
It was a free kindle book and the second time I downloaded it, it was under the kindle unlimited.

This story has some room for improvement. Some very cliche things in the writing that I found annoying like word choice and typos.
The story line definitely has potential and while I didn't hate the story I am mad that I didn't remember reading it before.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story

I found this to be a compelling story, and it leaves me wanting to know what happens. The writing could use work as I found a lot of typos, obviously written by an amateur, but has a lot of potential. I still plan on downloading the other books in the series to find out what happens.

[Gibby76 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think my 11 year old son will enjoy this. The story is good. The writing could have been better with some editing. There are places where a good edit and a rewrite could have made conversations clearer and consistence in how people are labeled while speaking could have been clearer. Other then that, it was a good read.

[John Valdez-Hernandez]

Good reading

I guess I was wishing for just a bit more action. The book was a bit slow and did not truly answer any of my questions. But since it is a series of books maybe book 2 will answer a few. I will say that I couldn't put this book down because I wanted to know what sort of mischief Jack and Kyle would get in to.

[MaryLynn Kebort · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hawthorne Inn is exciting and fun to read.

I enjoyed reading Hawthorne Inn. The story hints to many secrets in this old Inn. Strange things happening, underground tunnels. Possible vampires.
Hawthorne Inn is well written for people of ages 10 and up. I was disappointed in the ending. I don't like to be left hanging .