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Bone Chillers #15
Tiki Doll of Doom
Receiving a Hawaiian necklace from her aunt, Lucy begins to experience strange dreams that come true, and as the dreams increase in weirdness and intensity, she fears she cannot get rid of the necklace. Original.
- GenresHorror
130 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 1, 1997
2 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
About the author
Betsy Haynes
123 books111 followersABOUT ME
Maybe it's because my feisty grandma chased tarantulas around with a broom when we lived on an oil lease property when I was a baby that made me love danger and adventure. And maybe it was my father's spending nights as a trombonist with the bands of his day and his days spent drawing sketches that sparked my artistic side. Do you suppose that because my mother stood only four feet ten inches tall that I feel like a giant at five feet? And I'm sure my FBI (Full Blooded Italian) step-father, his seven brothers and sisters and their families are responsible for my LOVE of Italian food. That's who I am. Who are you?
My First Book, Peppy The Frog That I Wrote In The 2nd Grade
I'll always be a child at heart. Whenever I close my eyes, wonderful, funny, awful, embarrassing memories of middle school/junior high come flooding back to fill the pages of my contemporary novels. My childhood friendships and rivalries with old enemies all find their way into my books. I've even spied on my own kids for story ideas.
Unlike most kids who can't wait to grow up, I've gotten younger--at least my stories have. I've stepped into the world of 7 to 10 year olds.
I and my husband, Jim, live in Texas on Lake Lewisville north of Dallas. We are owned by our greyhound, Miller. Our favorite things to do are traveling the world and boating.
Maybe it's because my feisty grandma chased tarantulas around with a broom when we lived on an oil lease property when I was a baby that made me love danger and adventure. And maybe it was my father's spending nights as a trombonist with the bands of his day and his days spent drawing sketches that sparked my artistic side. Do you suppose that because my mother stood only four feet ten inches tall that I feel like a giant at five feet? And I'm sure my FBI (Full Blooded Italian) step-father, his seven brothers and sisters and their families are responsible for my LOVE of Italian food. That's who I am. Who are you?
My First Book, Peppy The Frog That I Wrote In The 2nd Grade
I'll always be a child at heart. Whenever I close my eyes, wonderful, funny, awful, embarrassing memories of middle school/junior high come flooding back to fill the pages of my contemporary novels. My childhood friendships and rivalries with old enemies all find their way into my books. I've even spied on my own kids for story ideas.
Unlike most kids who can't wait to grow up, I've gotten younger--at least my stories have. I've stepped into the world of 7 to 10 year olds.
I and my husband, Jim, live in Texas on Lake Lewisville north of Dallas. We are owned by our greyhound, Miller. Our favorite things to do are traveling the world and boating.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 20, 2026
Aloha or something. Tiki Doll of Doom is rather ‘ono, could’ve used from salt but it’s pretty freaking lolo either w—okay, I’ll shut up with the offensive Hawaiian slang. But I was speaking truth: Tiki Doll of Doom is pretty freaking solid. Michael Burgan’s writing was slightly above average compared to most works from this series so I was pretty pleased with that, and his story concept is very neat. I liked the concept a lot here, with the mechanics of how this foe operated and how it played out. The characters are also more interesting than most kids’ horror characters; the dynamic between the main two was good (thank the writing, again) and they had more intelligence than usual protags. The ending is sweet, the climax is good, and the whole story was fun. Alright, basics out of the way: now for the internalized transphobia. Kind of not joking—I have a theory that there might be an allegory for IT (short for the prior theme mentioned) here based on character study, more obviously the gender switching, and the ending. I wanna be vague so I don’t sound like a schizo but I found it cool, if I’m not reading between the lines incorrectly. This won’t affect the score, in case I’m stupid. Anyways—negatives. Tiki Doll of Doom has some trope-y story progression which was a bit annoying (whereas you as a reader knows exactly what’s going on but it takes half the book for it to be revealed to you). I think the first half in general is kinda slow, but nothing too abhorrent. The story is a bit too linear I feel and the Tiki Doll’s lore and function is very under explored. Good and neat, but had more potential. Overall, 8/10. It’s really good, one of the better Bone Chillers that I’ve read. Here’s a little message in Hawaiian: inā he ʻoiaʻiʻo koʻu manaʻo hoʻohālike ma mua o ka hoʻopaʻa ʻana i ka helu i kahi 9.5. Aloha!
November 21, 2024
Moving swiftly on in the ripoff round, we have Bone Chillers. Probably one of our most reliable series in terms of being solid. This has a fun title so sure let’s try it out. Ghostwriter this time is Micheal Burgan. He’s done some random kids book and is still around today, having a website and everything.
I actually did contact him once and his reply was “Yeah i did it, don’t recall tho lol”. So let’s see how it is: Lucy is visited by her aunt Jill who is an explorer type. An odd shaman gave her this tiki doll necklace which she gifts to Lucy. But soon after, she gets odd dreams and weird scary things start happening that happen to line up with the dreams. Is the tiki doll causing this and what exactly is going on?
This was solid. It’s yet another this round that will fall in the middle of my ranking of the series but in this series case that means it’s good. It’s a book where things fall into place well even if it doesn’t go above and beyond per say. It at first seems like these dreams are predicting the future but we see that something else is going on. The structure does make it so that it lacks tons of actions but it has a decent mystery as we see their reaction to these accidents that end up happening.
It’s weird that it veers from what you expect but not in a bad way. It builds to one of the better climaxes I’ve seen in these, lots of action in there. Lucy is a solid lead and in general we get some decent humor here. Some fun back and forth quip-y bits, I guess that’s the Burgan touch. Other things that feel like a ghostwriter thing are the rather short chapters and quicker pace, especially early on.
That can make it not quite breath right but as it goes on it gets better with this. It does build well as it goes. The reason for this going on makes sense and there is decent setup/payoff. And some ship teasing with her and the friend, which was cute.
The Shaman part means it flirts with being collar tugging but doesn’t quite go head first into it, since he doesn’t fully appear or anything. As a whole the book just works well. The premise is sound; it leads to a decent mystery with some solid tension and amusing bits on the side. It’s lacking a little extra something it’s not as notable as with some others.
I like it when there’s a lot to go over but sometimes it’s fine if it’s just a good little read. Bone Chillers has given us bigger hitters but it did enough to stand out. Should note that one dream deals with a mirror person and this had way more action than Mirror Mirror at least lol.
There isn’t too much to add. Nothing crazy but it got the job fairly well. This came after Terminal Case of the Uglies and two books before Why I Quit the Babysitter’s Club so it works as a bridge between bangers at least.
Next is Strange Matter, my beloved. We got an earlier entry featuring someone we met a while ago. See ya then.
I actually did contact him once and his reply was “Yeah i did it, don’t recall tho lol”. So let’s see how it is: Lucy is visited by her aunt Jill who is an explorer type. An odd shaman gave her this tiki doll necklace which she gifts to Lucy. But soon after, she gets odd dreams and weird scary things start happening that happen to line up with the dreams. Is the tiki doll causing this and what exactly is going on?
This was solid. It’s yet another this round that will fall in the middle of my ranking of the series but in this series case that means it’s good. It’s a book where things fall into place well even if it doesn’t go above and beyond per say. It at first seems like these dreams are predicting the future but we see that something else is going on. The structure does make it so that it lacks tons of actions but it has a decent mystery as we see their reaction to these accidents that end up happening.
It’s weird that it veers from what you expect but not in a bad way. It builds to one of the better climaxes I’ve seen in these, lots of action in there. Lucy is a solid lead and in general we get some decent humor here. Some fun back and forth quip-y bits, I guess that’s the Burgan touch. Other things that feel like a ghostwriter thing are the rather short chapters and quicker pace, especially early on.
That can make it not quite breath right but as it goes on it gets better with this. It does build well as it goes. The reason for this going on makes sense and there is decent setup/payoff. And some ship teasing with her and the friend, which was cute.
The Shaman part means it flirts with being collar tugging but doesn’t quite go head first into it, since he doesn’t fully appear or anything. As a whole the book just works well. The premise is sound; it leads to a decent mystery with some solid tension and amusing bits on the side. It’s lacking a little extra something it’s not as notable as with some others.
I like it when there’s a lot to go over but sometimes it’s fine if it’s just a good little read. Bone Chillers has given us bigger hitters but it did enough to stand out. Should note that one dream deals with a mirror person and this had way more action than Mirror Mirror at least lol.
There isn’t too much to add. Nothing crazy but it got the job fairly well. This came after Terminal Case of the Uglies and two books before Why I Quit the Babysitter’s Club so it works as a bridge between bangers at least.
Next is Strange Matter, my beloved. We got an earlier entry featuring someone we met a while ago. See ya then.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews