The Ghosts of Devil's Marsh

Shivers #24

by M.D. Spenser

While spending the summer visiting her cousins on a small coastal island, eleven-year-old Samantha encounters terrifying things.

Genres: Horror, Paranormal, Fiction, Childrens

124 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 25, 1996

About the author

M.D. Spenser is a children's author, journalist and music critic. Born in the United States, he lives now in the UK.

"The Enchanted Attic," Book 1 of his popular SHIVERS series of novels for children, was republished as an e-book in August 2011. It is available at amazone.com, Barnes & Noble, Sony and iBookstory. Book 2, "A Ghastly Shade of Green," and Book 3, "Ghost Writer," followed shortly afterwards.


The rest of the 36-book series will be published as ebooks over time.

Also, an internet petition is circulating asking that the entire 36-book series be republished in paperback: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/md...

Reviews

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ghosts of Devils Marsh is a book from the Shivers series that I've heard great things about.And I was excited to read it !The story stars out main protagonist leaving to go live with some distant relatives .Her aunt uncle and their kids.I honestly can't remember how many kids they have.But it's a lot.Adam and Andy ? I think is his name are the main ones that contribute to the plot of the book,so those are the ones ill mention.One day while the kids are outside ,there is this lightening storm and it ends up striking a tree.Samantha is freaked by this and runs inside.One of the kids slip up and mentions that there are some ghost stories about the small town.And one of the kids even mentions he's seen as ghost before.He tells her about the few ghost stories ,first one about a baby beating eaten by an alligator and another about a man ending his life bc his daughter ran into the Marsh and ended up drowning.He also mentions the ghost he saw which is this head that floats up from a tree that got struck by lightning and inside the face it opens up its mouth and released a bunch of gremlin like creatures.Yeah this is definitely a Shivers book. This prompts the kids to go explore and look for ghosts. Samantha is kind of interested because she loves spooky ghost stories ,but one of the kids Adam is actually pretty terrified but they end up going riding bikes and end up losing Samantha ,so she ends up by herself. She ends up trying to find a way back and notices this very colorful bird flying around .It flies around into a graveyard and she sees that a lot of the graveyard markings have relatives that are kin to her on the tombstones and she even notices one with her actual name. She knocks over a statue in the graveyard of a heart and decides to pick it up to fix it.She gets freaked out and leaves and runs into this lady this lady that mentions that Samantha has the devil's power in her and that she's in trouble ,or something along those lines. That night when she's at home she sees what looks like a fire outside the house where the marsh is at. So she goes and tries to wake up her family members but they're already awake and when she looks back out the window she doesn't see anything. This makes Adam tell Samantha one more scary story about the marsh and basically the marshes road is very narrow and there's been a lot of car wrecks.And some people don't end up living through them ,so now she's definitely seeing more things ,not to mention ghost snakes arguing with birds and stuff .They end up going back to the weird shack lady to figure out what exactly is going on and the lady tells her how to end the curse and that's where I'm going to leave this review. This book was actually very incredible .A fellow Shivers enthusiast said this is one of the better Shivers books and I'll admit that I didn't think that it was going to be my favorite until the very last chapter.The very last chapter had a lot of heart and everything tied together very nicely. It was actually sad and it was very dark. I really enjoyed this one .The only problems I had with this book was I wish that some of the ghost stories stuff would have actually been just real things that happened. And technically it still could have. I'm not going to give this for five out of five stars because I really just don't think this book was perfect.but it's definitely one of the better books in the Shivers series and I highly recommend it. I give the ghosts of devil's Marsh a four out of five stars.

[Austin Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Shivers book that's actually decent.

[Owen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Such a waste of a storyline, I'm not gonna lie, the beginning was good, then when Ghosts started attacking because she hit an object of the tomb that was basically it. She has to go to a gypsy woman, just the other books that involve gypsy old white hair, hag ladies! It's broken this book.
Never reading again, another disappointment from m.d.spenser

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

FULL REVIEW: https://spongey444.wordpress.com/2020...

[Alejandro Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marking my fifth read from the Shivers series, this entry is notoriously one of the far more liked stories from this series. Now having read it, I can see why even though this isn’t groundbreaking for kids horror as a whole. There’s some nice family ties to all the happenings, and it really helped this story stay afloat creatively. There’s an awesome and well-rounded conclusion to the story, some depressing reveals that were definitely above average for this series, and decent writing all-round. There’s also a decent threat, and some okay scares that come with it. The cousinly bond between Sammy and Adam is quite good, nice inclusion with Andy—who has a lisp, which is a nice, distinctive trait—and some solid ghost stories. Though I do have to say that the first thirty pages of this book are awful. It’s non-stop bickering, arguing, chaos, and assholery that I couldn’t even like it at all. The climax could’ve been a bit more drawn out as well, and I felt Melinda was underused as a character and truly only served as an exposition dump for the finale. Overall, 8/10. The best Shivers? I guess so… for now. We’ll have to see how this fairs up against “The Curse of the New Kid” in the distant future.

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another family drama. The two boys were so irritating, it actually made it hard to enjoy this one. Also, who leaves their kid for 2 months with family they don't know to work abroad?

[Arthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Samantha is sent to live with her uncle & aunt in a marsh. She has her little boy cousins too. Then Samantha becoming haunted by ghost questions her involvement. Is she really to blame? What about her cousins? How can they help her?