Rose Marshall died in 1952 in Buckley Township, Michigan, run off the road by a man named Bobby Cross—a man who had sold his soul to live forever, and intended to use her death to pay the price of his immortality. Trouble was, he didn’t ask Rose what she thought of the idea.

It’s been more than sixty years since that night, and she’s still sixteen, and she’s still running.

They have names for her all over the country: the Girl in the Diner. The Phantom Prom Date. The Girl in the Green Silk Gown. Mostly she just goes by “Rose,” a hitchhiking ghost girl with her thumb out and her eyes fixed on the horizon, trying to outrace a man who never sleeps, never stops, and never gives up on the idea of claiming what’s his. She’s the angel of the overpass, she’s the darling of the truck stops, and she’s going to figure out a way to win her freedom. After all, it’s not like it can kill her.

You can’t kill what’s already dead. 

Sparrow Hill Road will always have a special place on my Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant shelf…this is the very first book of her’s that I purchased! This was a couple years ago, and it was on Book Outlet (where books are basically free, no?) Something about the cover really grabbed my eye, and I knew she was a writer I was interested in reading! October seemed like the perfect time to finally read this one, and…gah…this book was badass!!

This is the story of Rose Marshall, a sixteen-year-old girl who was run off the road and killed in 1952 by a man named Bobby Cross, and who has been haunting the roadways ever since. She has become an urban legend of sorts, and earned a variety of different names: The Phantom Prom Date, The Girl in the Green Silk Gown, The Girl in the Diner. Rose is a hitchhiking ghost, fated to live on in the (sometimes corporeal) body of her sixteen-year-old self, helping some motorists avoid a death similar to her own…or else guiding them into the afterlife.

And sometimes, Rose just really fucking wants a milkshake & a cheeseburger.

Sparrow Hill Road introduces a really deep mythology to the reader…there’s a variety of different people, living & dead (and somewhere in between), who all have their role to play in these weird/different layers of the country. It can be slightly confusing at times, but the characters even get a little confused from time to time!!! That helps!

Sparrow Hill Road began its life as twelve short stories, and…you really do get that vibe as you read it. But not in a bad way!! Just…it seems to take awhile for the plot to take shape. Things sort of meander along for a bit, with Rose coming in & out of different people’s lives. And truly, this isn’t a knock against the book, because the writing is gorgeous throughout. It just almost becomes something else entirely as the real crux of Rose’s story comes into focus. And Rose really comes into her own as a character as the book progresses. 

Rose is a brilliant character, one I can’t wait to read more about (the second book in this series, The Girl in the Green Silk Gown, was recently released). There’s this unbearable sense of sadness she carries with her, her life having been cut so tragically short. And she has no small amount of bitterness over her death, and of the fucked-up version of life she’s forced to live out. 

Sparrow Hill Road is tinged with heartache…with that heavy “what could have been” feeling, and with love lost. It’s a beautiful book, by an author who is quickly becoming one of my very favorites.