It's an odd, weirdly entertaining story with a touch of the supernatural. In 1975, while hiding in the bushes during a game of Robin Hood, Miles Sandeski saw a man wearing of all things...a chicken mask, cut his mother’s throat in their backyard. Years go by...now we meet grown up Miles. Miles has no family. His father, who was accused of the murder, hung himself.... but now Miles has a family of his own...Lily, who was his childhood sweetheart, and their daughter, Eva. Soon the family extends to Errol, who was an unexplained addition, that they treat as their son. Miles has a secret that his father told to him that involved some plans, that had been stolen from Thomas Edison, for a machine that had the ability to allow communication with the dead. Miles keeps the plans hidden, and he builds the machine. As you can imagine, tragedy soon strikes. A flood washes away their home, leaving Miles and Errol dead and Lily and Eva...who is now known as Necco...living as vagrants. They go to a homeless camp where Lily joins a mystical group of women. Soon she, too, dies, and Necco is now living in an abandoned car with her boyfriend, Hermes. Then everything goes awry...again...and Necco is now being pursued by an evil man that her mother had called “Snake Eyes” or “Chicken Man”. What a cast of oddball characters we now have!!! A girl fleeing a drug dealer, a fat woman, a ghost from her past...all combined into one hodgepodge of one very, very strange tale. It's less of a mystery or a thriller as it is advertised...but instead I would call it the "stepchild" of a Stephen King horror story and a Grimms fairy tale about a journey into a city where no one in their right mind would want to stay, or to even want to go to start with.. If you have ever read any of Jennifer McMahone's work, you know that this is fairly normal (??), fare from her. She writes some really chill producing. very worthwhile stories. Just don't go in expecting everything to be explained completely or to make total sense. ( )

I've come to expect a good, creepy story from Jennifer McMahon. Burntown was good, but not creepy at all. As soon as I found out what "the machine" did, I really thought the book was going in one direction but it went someplace completely different. This is much more of a standard mystery than anything paranormal. The mystery, I thought, was very easy to figure out and I just waited to see how the reveal would work out.

I think if you're already a fan of the author's work, you'll enjoy it enough to pick up but if you're brand new to McMahon, I'd start with The Night Sister.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this one. ( )

I read The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon last year and I loved and I was thrilled for the chance to read this book.

Burntown, in my opinion, did not have the same intense storyline as The Winter People had. What I loved about the Winter People were the dual-timeline and the paranormal aspect of the story. It was thrilling and fascinating to read. Burntown lacked that and the story about Eve (Necco) just never got that intense. At first, it felt like what Necco went through was some sort of apocalyptic event. It was fascinating, but then it kind of fizzled out and I kept on wanting the story to pick up speed again and get interesting again. What made me stick with the story was the machine that made you speak to the dead, I was curious about it and I was also curious about whom killed Milo's mother. Did the killing of Milo's mother have something to do with what happened to Necco's family?

For me was this book not especially memorable. It's not so long ago that I read it, but I found it was hard to write a review for the book since the story just didn't intrigue me so much. However, I did find it got better when Necco started to search for answers together with two very unlikely allies. I would say that the first part of the book before they got together and help each other was not as interesting as when they started to search for answers.

For me was Burntown just not as good as The Winter People. That doesn't mean that this book was not good, it just didn't live up to my expectations I guess.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through Edelweiss for an honest review! ( )

Jennifer McMahon is very good at mixing traditional crime novel elements with the supernatural. Her characters are great. The ending of this one is a little too pat. She does a great job building up the suspense, but then all of a sudden it's over. I could've used another 25 or 50 pages on the criminal's character development. ( )

Wonderful characters. A good mystery. Very enjoyable. ( )