Book Review: The Flip by Michael Phillip Cash

My Rating ***

The Flip by Michael Phillip Cash is the story of Julie and Brad Evans who buy cheap houses, clean out the old occupants junk, renovate them and then sell them for a profit. This is how they make a living to survive. This business of flipping the houses was going on relatively well for them. They were making a small amount of money with each flip. However, things started to change when Julie and Brad stumbled upon Hemmings House by accident. The house was located on Bedlam Street in scenic Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island and was too good a deal to pass up for them. While Julie loved the house, there was something about the house Brad doesn’t like. Nonetheless, they bought this old abandoned Victorian house and started to clean out the place. This is when strange things started to happen. The house started to reveal its secret leading into testing the bonds of Brad and Julie’s marriage.Will they survive this flip? You will have to read it to find that out.

This is a typical run of the mill ghost story with a gentle touch.There is no graphic violence or gore in this story.The story is written with passion and certainly a page turner.The author knows how to keep reader’s eyes fastened to the book. He skilfully combines the past with the present making it a good read. A little bit of history is also thrown. As a story writer, the author’s forte is his versatility and range. This story exhibits an astonishing variety of theme, setting, mood and tonne. As for his narrative style, he is a born story teller, endowed with an unerring sense of situation and with the ability to visualise a scene clearly. The story is built round the principle of simple irony of circumstances, leading to the shock of discovery. However, in the ‘well-made story’ the beginning and end are of crucial importance. While there is a twist in the end, I am not sure whether it will make you think wow or not. For me, the end could have been better and more surprising. This ending, to me, seems to have influenced from other celebrated technique of the trick finale and didn’t impress me much.

Brad and Julie are the main protagonists of this work and their characters have been developed very well. Brad, a muscular ex military man, is kind, polite and would do anything for his wife Julie. Julie is the overly attached wife who keeps Brad grounded. The chemistry between these two is well portrayed. There are a number of scenes which depict a growing tension between these two and readers can feel this tension in their hearts too. For this, the author should be complimented. However, except these two, the others characters do not leave any sort of impression on you. While the characters of Tessa and Gerald (the ghosts of the house) not only add a certain charm to the storyline and help the story to move forward, you feel that something is missing in their characters. I feel that the background story of Tessa and Gerald could have been developed more. The Sentinels are other supernatural beings in the story. Though they have been projected as the guardians of some sort, their exact nature and function is not clear in the book. Rest of the characters do not add anything to the storyline.

At the end, I would just like to say that it is an enjoyable book that can be consumed in one sitting. And, Michael Philips Cash is now an author that I will be keeping my eyes on.

(I received this book from the author through Bostick Communications in exchange for an honest review.)