Melissa Albert: "The Bad Ones"

Title: The Bad Ones [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Melissa Albert [Instagram | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural, Thriller/Mystery, Contemporary
Year: 2024
Age: 14+
Stars: 4.5/5
Pros: Engrossing, twisty mystery. Unexpected resolution. Fleshed-out leads whose relationship is equally well-developed.
Cons: A certain player's involvement becomes clear a bit too early. The supporting characters are little more than tools to advance the plot. The romance feels unnecessary.  
WARNING! Sexual assault/abuse (off-page), self-injury, car accident, parental death (off-page), murder by suffocation, near-drowning. Homophobia, bigotry, bullying.
Will appeal to: Those who like urban legends/supernatural mysteries/witchcraft gone wrong. Those who enjoy fierce, yet messy/toxic friendships.

Blurb: In the course of a single winter’s night, four people vanish without a trace across a small town. Nora’s estranged best friend, Becca, is one of the lost. As Nora tries to untangle the truth of Becca’s disappearance, she discovers a darkness in her town’s past, as well as a string of coded messages Becca left for her to unravel. These clues lead Nora to a piece of local lore: a legendary goddess of forgotten origins who played a role in Nora and Becca’s own childhood games... (Amazon)

Review: I'm late to the Melissa Albert party, but after loving her adult debut, I've made it my mission to read everything she writes. I have some small quibbles about The Bad Ones, but regardless, I found it to be trippy, entertaining and emotional, and I loved its curveball ending.
Just a heads-up before I start...the cover doesn't match the content. There's a weeping angel statue at some point in the story, but don't expect it to mean anything...and if the cover is supposed to represent the goddess (which of course it is), BIG FAIL.

DAZED AND AMAZED

The Bad Ones blends all-consuming (you might very well say toxic) friendship with a supernatural mystery that leaves you enough breadcrumbs to figure out its direction, yet throws you for a loop multiple times before you decipher it, and hits you with a last couple of twists you couldn't have seen coming. Told in three different voices and timelines (Nora's 1st person POV in the present, Becca's 3rd person POV in the past, another character's 3rd person POV recounting even older events), it's an addictive puzzle with minimal gore or violence, but a dark core - though it ultimately ends up in a much healthier place than one might expect. The beginning is atmospheric, intriguing, creepy - unexpected, too. Albert doesn't waste time setting up the mystery, but she doesn't start, as one would anticipate, by introducing her main characters - yet the hook is impossible to resist: three people, apparently unrelated, are accosted by a mysterious female being and vanish into thin air. From there, the wheels in the reader's head keep turning and the theories about what happened to those three (and to Becca herself, later reported missing as well) multiply. I buddy-read this one with my friend Carrie, and we traded a few wild hypotheses along the way, but most of them turned out to be wrong...though at least one of the answers had stared us in the face the whole time 😅. And, considering we're both seasoned supernatural-thriller readers, that's saying something. The final twist had me in awe, especially since it took one of my core assumptions about the plot and flipped it on its head, giving the story a far more original - and tragic - angle (Carrie was a bit less enthused by that turn of events, but I'll let her review speak for itself). [...]

Hanna Alkaf: "The Hysterical Girls of St. Bernadette's"

Title: The Hysterical Girls Of St. Bernadette's [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Hanna Alkaf [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural, Contemporary
Year: 2024
Age: 14+
Stars: 4/5
Pros: Fleshed-out, believable (and diverse) protagonists (Muslim, Malaysian). Strong social commentary. Atmospheric writing. 
Cons: The ending feels rushed and doesn't provide enough closure, especially for some characters.
WARNING! Sexual assault/molestation (not graphic, mentioned), trauma, psychosis, victim dismissal, toxic parent, corporal punishment (mentioned).
Will appeal to: Those who enjoy stories about female empowerment and solidarity - better if in a supernatural context.

Blurb: For over a hundred years, girls have fought to attend St. Bernadette’s, with its reputation for shaping only the best and brightest young women. Unfortunately, there is also the screaming. When a student begins to scream in the middle of class, a chain reaction starts that impacts the entire school. By the end of the day, seventeen girls are affected - along with St. Bernadette’s stellar reputation. Khadijah’s got her own scars to tend to, and watching her friends succumb to hysteria only rips apart wounds she’d rather keep closed. But when her sister falls to the screams, Khad knows she’s the only one who can save her. Rachel has always been far too occupied trying to reconcile her overbearing mother’s expectations with her own secret ambitions to pay attention to school antics. But just as Rachel finds her voice, it turns into screams. Together, the two girls find themselves digging deeper into the school’s dark history, hunting for the truth. Little do they know that a specter lurks in the darkness, watching, waiting, and hungry for its next victim... (Amazon)

Review: Why don't more people talk about this book? It's one of those hidden gems that keep getting overlooked in favour of more hyped novels, and I'm going to do my part to rectify this wrong...

SISTERS IN ARMS

In the vein of Flawless Girls, but with more flesh to its plot and characters, THGOSB is an unapologetically Malaysian, yet in a way universal tale with many facets: an enthralling supernatural mystery woven with a strong contemporary/coming-of-age thread; the story of a haunting, yet not a conventional ghost story; but more than anything, a call to togetherness in the face of women's vilification and dismissal. Despite the publisher's notes, however, it definitely doesn't fall under the dark-academia umbrella, unless you think that a single character being strong-armed by her mother into excellence qualifies - I'm telling you this just so you don't build up expectations that won't be met (I mean...everything's labeled "dark academia" these days, but a "school with secrets" setting isn't enough for a book to earn it). Mainly told in a dual narrative, but with the interpolation of a third point of view, THGOSB explores themes of trauma, agency (or lack thereof) and the silencing of female voices, along with sisterhood (real or forged) and the most abhorrent crime: women themselves perpetuating the cycle of abuse because they think it's inescapable, and that the only way girls can protect themselves is by becoming higher-priced commodities. [...]

Quinn Connor: "Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves"

Title: Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Quinn Connor [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Contemporary with a Twist, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2023

Age: 16+ (I shelved it as Adult because of the characters' age, and it's indeed marketed to that demographic, but it can be read by mature teens. There are far more graphic YA books out there)

Stars: 4.5/5
Pros: Atmospheric, spellbinding, inventive, full of heart. Centers on a set of unique, diverse characters.
Cons: Tendentially slow (if you prefer stories with more than a modicum of action). Leaves some questions unanswered.
WARNING! Violence, body horror (though in one case it's actually more poetic than disturbing), blood, drowning/near drowning. Bullying/toxic friendship, panic attacks/disorders, grief, racism, classism.
Will appeal to: Those who like stories with their roots in a troubled/tragic past. Those who enjoy a mixture of cozy and unsettling, beauty and horror. Those who have a thing for characters both haunted and haunting.

Blurb: Prosper, Arkansas had not always been this way. Years ago, at the height of the summer swelter, in the wake of an unexpected storm, the local dam failed and the valley flooded - drowning the town and everyone trapped inside. The secrets of old Prosper drowned with them. Now, decades later, when a mysterious locked box is pulled from the depths of the lake, three descendants of that long-ago tragedy are hurled into another feverish summer. Cassie: the reclusive sole witness to an impossible horror no one believes. Lark: a wide-eyed dreamer haunted by bizarre visions. June: caught between longing for a fresh start and bearing witness to the ghosts of the past. Bound together, all three must contend with their home's complex history - and with the ruins of the town lost far beneath the troubled water. (Amazon)

Review: In 2024, I got the chance to read an ARC of Connor's second novel The Pecan Children, and I fell in love. That experience compelled me to seek their first one (I say "their" because Quinn Connor is actually the pen name for a writing duo, Robyn Barrow and Alex Cronin), which cemented them in my favourite-author pantheon. So here I go again, gushing about their debut book that doesn't read like a debut at all...

PAST IS PROLOGUE

If The Pecan Children was a (mind-bending) "allegory of decay in small-town America" (to quote the editorial notes), CSOSG deals with a dark page of the country's history, and sacrifices the big twist(s) for a slow but steady crescendo of reveals, a trickle of often uncanny details painting the picture of a small lakeside community and the way a tragic event that occurred many years prior continues to shape its present. The fictional town of Prosper is inspired by a real Arkansas one (Buckville) that was intentionally flooded in the 1950s, causing the displacement of many struggling farmers, a number of them Black and Native Americans. Cicadas gives an even more appalling spin to that story - and many others of the same kind - whose extent will only be apparent towards the end of the novel. On the backdrop of that tragedy, the authors entwine the lives of three young women (and the teen brother of one of them), each haunted in a different way, and craft a story of generational trauma, family ties, sense of belonging/legacy, human connection, ghosts of the past (both literal and figurative) and hope for the future. The protagonists are from diverse ethnicities (which ties in with the story), sexual orientations and ways of life, marked by different familial histories or survivors of different traumas, but the narrative manages to bring them together organically and effortlessly, and each one of them gets her chance to steal the scene - though I must admit having a soft spot for June and her intensity, that manifests itself in an impossible, ultimately poetical guise. [...]

Ian Chorão: "When We Talk to the Dead" (ARC Review)

Title: When We Talk to the Dead [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Ian Chorão [Instagram | Goodreads]
Genres: Thriller/Mystery, Supernatural (more like Paranormal, but I'm using genre labels that match my Reading Rooms, where Paranormal is under the Supernatural umbrella)
Year: 2025
Age: 16+ (please have a look at the WARNING! section though)
Stars: 4/5
Pros: Haunting, tense, almost lyrical at times (horror notwithstanding), with diverse, fleshed out characters and intriguing dynamics.
Cons: A couple of major plot points (not of the supernatural/paranormal kind) require a strong dose of suspension of disbelief. The open ending may not sit well with certain readers.
WARNING! Violence/assault (not of the sexual kind), horror/blood and gore (I can't be too specific in order to avoid spoiler, but TW for drowning). Anxiety, intrusive thoughts, trauma, loss of a sibling, loss of a parent, mentally ill parent. Use of a derogatory term.
Will appeal to: Those who are looking for a blend of very real and psychological horror with a twist. Those who are fond of damaged, yet brave characters and complicated relationships.

Blurb: Though nineteen-year-old Sally remembers nothing about the accident that took place on Captain’s Island and destroyed her family when she was a little girl, she suffers from intense anxiety, pervasive bouts of dissociation, and gruesome nightmares. All Sally knows is that her mother hasn’t spoken since the accident that took the life of Sally’s twin sister. Following the tragedy, her family fled and never looked back. When her mother suddenly dies, Sally and three college friends travel to the island - for her friends it’s an adventure to a strange, abandoned place. For Sally, it’s a desperate bid to recover some of her memories and understand what really happened to her family. But when memories begin to return, Sally is overcome by grief and rage that threaten to plunge her into madness – a madness that is fed by a malevolent presence stalking them on the island. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Crooked Lane Books for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

GHOST IMAGE

When We Talk to the Dead turned out to be a different novel than I'd envisioned - mind you that's not a bad thing at all, but I want you to have a better idea of what you're getting into if you decide to give it a chance (which you totally should 😉), so I thought I'd give you a heads-up. With very little help from the cryptic cover (though, after reading the book, I realised it was a good fit), and nothing else to go by than the blurb and the title, I thought I was in for a ghost story...which I suppose can be deemed true in a sense, but not the one you would imagine. OK, now it's me who's being cryptic, but I don't want to spoil the book for you either...Suffice to say, there aren't any ghosts in this story...not in the classic sense. But if you think of memories and trauma and lost loved ones and the child you used to be as ghosts, I suppose there are plenty... [...]

Jihyun Yun: "And the River Drags Her Down" (ARC Review)

Title: And the River Drags Her Down [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Jihyun Yun [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural, Afterlife, Contemporary
Year: 2025
Age: 14+
Stars: 4/5
Pros: Honest, raw (yet at times poetical) representation of grief. Fleshed out characters who elicit sympathy even when they make bad choices. Atmospheric writing.
Cons: Gloomy and emotionally though. Delivers a predictable (though powerfully executed) resolution.
WARNING! Parent death, sibling death, animal death/sacrifice, body horror/decay, car crash, drowning/near drowning, strangulation, burns, underage drinking. Parentification, grief, racism.
Will appeal to: Those who enjoy revenant narratives, lyrical horror, Korean folklore and coming-of-age themes. Those who like damaged characters, complicated sibling relationships, and estranged friends' reconnections leading to tentative romance.

Blurb: When her older sister is found mysteriously drowned in the river that cuts through their small coastal town, Soojin Han disregards every rule and uses her ancestral magic to bring Mirae back from the dead. At first, the sisters are overjoyed, reveling in late-night escapades and the miracle of being together again, but Mirae grows tired of hiding from the world. Driven by an insatiable desire to unravel the truth that crushed her family so many years ago, she is out for revenge. When their town is engulfed by increasingly destructive rain and a series of harrowing, unusual deaths, Soojin is forced to reckon with the fact that perhaps the sister she brought back isn’t the one she knew. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Oneworld Publications/Rock the Boat for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

A STUDY IN SORROW

Yun takes a pretty common trope in YA literature - a teen with powers bringing back a dead loved one, namely a sister - and uses it to its best advantage in order to tell a much larger story, incorporating themes like parentification, selfishness, loneliness, guilt, by way of ancestral magic and Korean myths/culture. Mainly told from the perspective of 17 y.o. Soojin, but including other POVs, mostly resurrected sister Mirae's (one of the touches that make the book stand out in a sea of "came back wrong" narratives), And the River Drags Her Down pulls no punches in exploring the grief that engulfs a broken family (six years prior to Mirae's drowning, when the girls were 10 and 11, their mother died in a car crash) and its consequences - maybe a tad, you know, enhanced by magic, but not less relatable for this reason...if anything, even more. While the power that the women in her family possess was originally born out of very primal needs during a prolonged food shortage (and only meant to resurrect small animals), Soojin has twisted it into a tool to avoid facing loss, even before she employs it to resurrect her sister. Mired in grief and loneliness, she ultimately turns to her gift in order to get her only emotional anchor back, but there will be hell to pay - for her and Mirae both, not to mention, a bunch of other people - and ultimately, a though decision to make. [...]

Ryan Leslie: "The Garden of Before" (ARC Review)

Title: The Garden of Before  [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: The Between (2nd of 2 books)
Author: Ryan Leslie [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural (technically it would be Portal Fantasy, but since I don't have a Fantasy Room on the blog, I decided to shelf this one as Supernatural - that's the closer I could get), Multiverse, Sci-Fi, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2025
Age: 18+ (but it can be read by mature teens)
Stars: 5/5
Pros: Imaginative, engaging and visually stunning. Rich in worldbuilding and character development/dynamics.
Cons: The main characters' unusual inner strength requires a little suspension of disbelief.
WARNING! Horror and gore, fires, death of a sibling, dismemberment/decapitation, run-over, violence, depression, miscarriage (off-page).
Will appeal to: Everyone who loves game-like structures and larger-than-life scenarios/adventures in their books.

Blurb: For Paul Prentice things have gotten much worse. His house was destroyed in the battle with the Koŝmaro. He's on thin ice at his job, where instead of working he loses himself in the Between's computer game, trying in vain to find explanations. His best friend Jay has transformed into a shadowy killer. Corinne and Supriya have vanished. And it appears his wife, Julie, has finally had enough and left him. Alone and near ruin, Paul receives a familiar visitor with a dire message: they are all back in the Between. Hunted, captured, doomed. For Paul, still wearing the serĉilo's artifact on his wrist, escape was never an option. The game must be played until the end. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary eARC from the author, since I had already enjoyed and reviewed Book 1 in the series, The Between, in 2021, and his second novel, Colossus, in 2024. That didn't affect my opinion and rating in any way.

Also, to help you get your bearings, a small recap of Book 1, for those of you who haven't picked it up yet, but might be tempted to after reading my review for the sequel...

While landscaping his backyard, Paul discovers an iron door buried in the soil. His childhood friend Jay pushes them to explore what's beneath. When the door slams shut above them, Paul and Jay are trapped in a between-worlds place of Escher-like rooms and horror story monsters, all with a mysterious connection to a command-line, dungeon explorer computer game from the early '80s called The Between. Paul and Jay, along with new and old acquaintances, find themselves filling mind-warping roles in a story that seems to play out over and over again...

CHARACTERS SHAKEUP

Now this is how you write a sequel/end of series.

If The Between was an exciting, rich and well-written foray into a terrifying multiverse nexus that you can never really escape even if you manage to get out - not if one of the roles it entails gets a hold of you - The Garden of Before ups the stakes, not only because the main characters are trying to save themselves and/or their loved ones (and in some cases, even to dismantle the place), but also because all their strengths and weaknesses, lights and shadows, come into sharp focus, raising questions about loyalty, revenge, love, sacrifice, and ultimately, what it means to be human. On one hand, Leslie introduces new characters (or, in some cases, not really...I'm not going to spoil the surprise 😉), and even manages to bring back old ones with a clever, poignant stratagem; on the other, he expands the roles of a few protagonists and secondary characters from Book 1, and creates fresh, powerful dynamics. Julie, Supriya and Corinne (along with two "new" female characters, if to a smaller extent because of their limited screen time) steal the scene in this one, which is a welcome change after the abundance of "dude talk" in Book 1 (I have to admit that I wish Jay would have been toned down a bit back then); and all the protagonists, despite being damaged in different ways - or precisely because of that - elicit empathy and/or a fierce attachment on the reader's part. [...]

Dan Hanks: "The Way Up Is Death" (ARC Review)

Title: The Way Up Is Death [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Dan Hanks [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural, Multiverse, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2025
Age: 18+
Stars: 4.5/5
Pros: Inventive and cinematic; hard-hitting yet moving and ultimately hopeful.
Cons: Given the large cast of characters (and the very nature of the story), not all of them get to be sufficiently developed.
WARNING! Blood and gore, dismemberment, torture, near-drowning, human combustion/explosion, body horror, eye horror, rat horror, death of a loved one.
Will appeal to: Those who are in for a wild, brutal yet poetical adventure/mystery that doubles as a reflection on humanity, life and the future.

Blurb: When a mysterious tower appears in the skies over England, thirteen strangers are pulled from their lives to stand before it as a countdown begins. Above the doorway is one word: ASCEND. As a grieving teacher, a reclusive artist, and a narcissistic celebrity children’s author lead the others in trying to understand why they’ve been chosen and what the tower is, it soon becomes clear the only way out of this for everyone…is up. And so begins a race to the top, through sinking ships, haunted houses and other waking nightmares, as the group fights to hold onto its humanity, while the twisted horror of why they’re here grows ever more apparent – and death stalks their every move. (Amazon)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Angry Robot for providing an ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

MORE TO IT

This book's premise is impossible to resist if you're the kind of reader whose mantra is "the weirder the better", but I'm here to confirm that, if you take a chance on TWUID, you won't regret being lured in, and you'll end up getting more than you bargained for. The short-and-sweet version of such premise: thirteen everymen and women from the UK (or just passing through) are pulled from their lives and forced to ascend an impossible tower in the skies, all while trying to fathom the how and (especially) the why in the process. From videogame settings to spaceships, from haunted houses to tropical beaches, a series of equally impossible locations (but ones that are somehow tailored to the travellers' past experiences) have the characters play a deadly game of escape rooms, of which they have to figure out the rules as they go. Exciting, isn't it? But if you tend to need a little more meat on your stories' bones, or if the cosmic horror premise and the content warning list left you on the fence about giving TWUID a chance, there are a couple more things you need to know. One: for a book that sheds so much blood and put its characters through the wringer, Hank's latest is surprisingly comforting and life-affirming. Two: for a book that relies so much on nightmarish experiences and frantic escapes, and even comes close to jumping the shark a couple of times (one of which quite literally 😂), TWUID is (also) surprisingly deep, so that you end up forgiving it for not making you care more for its characters (more of that below) or not giving you all the answers (if you're the type of reader who needs them, because to be honest, they're NOT the point here). [...]

Lora Senf: "The Losting Fountain" (ARC Review)

Title: The Losting Fountain [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None (so far...but a continuation of the story is implied)
Author: Lora Senf [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural
Year: 2024
Age: 14+
Stars: 4/5
Pros: Creative premise. Rich, fascinating worldbuilding. Deceptively simple - but as a matter of fact expertly crafted - prose.
Cons: Lacks that extra ingredient that makes you bond with the characters on a visceral level. One twist is easy to anticipate. While the story doesn't end on a cliffhanger, there are a number of loose threads left for a sequel to pick up (if you prefer your books to be self-contained).
WARNING! Blood and gore, death/animal death, suicide (off-page), child abuse (off-page), injuries/mutilations, burns, near-drowning, body horror, bugs.
Will appeal to: Those who enjoy a creative portal-fantasy-adjacent world with quirky characters.

Blurb: Ember, Miles, and Sam have been called home - only home is a place none of them have ever been before. The choices they make will not only determine their own futures but will also have vast and permanent consequences - they will either restore a cosmic balance or destroy the dams that separate two worlds, ending them both. Hidden below the surface, the world of the Fountain is vast: unexplored and unmapped and full of wild things. There are other entities as well, entities that haunt and hunt in the Fountain, because it rewards nearly as often as it punishes, and it has been punishing the greedy and merciless and cruel for a very long time. The borders between our world and the world of the Fountain are already porous. If the balance between them is upset and control of the Fountain is lost, the consequences will be rapid, merciless, and world-ending. For Ember, Miles, and Sam, all from different times, what starts as a journey to take control of their lives quickly becomes a quest to save - or destroy - both worlds, depending on whom you ask. (Amazon excerpt)

Review:  First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on Edelweiss. Thanks to Union Square & Co. for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

ITS OWN MAGIC

I'm always on the hunt for books that bring something new to the table, so I decided to give The Losting Fountain a chance - based both on the synopsis and on Seanan McGuire's endorsement by way of a blurb. I'm pleased to say that this novel is, indeed, a fresh spin on the portal fantasy genre (though in an oblique way, since the island where the Fountain resides can't be accessed from your average portal) and the teen heroes/chosen ones trope. If the Fountain is slightly reminiscent of the Shop Where Lost Things Go from Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series, Senf does something entirely different with the premise by having the Fountain act as a moral compass: from time to time, it calls to people who have lost something and gives them the chance to retrieve it, but if they get greedy and try to take other things that didn't use to belong to them, the Fountain punishes them and...recycles them for other purposes. At the same time, it serves as a defense, preventing nightmarish creatures from another dimension from creeping into our world (and into any when, which adds an exciting layer to the plot). There's a complex (though not overwhelming) magic system at play with regards to the Fountain and the island, and while I was a little frustrated by some half-explanations, I suppose they have a rhyme and reason in a story that purposefully leaves some threads hanging in view of a possible sequel. [...]

Daniel Church: "The Ravening" (ARC Review)

Title: The Ravening [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Daniel Church [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2024
Age: 18+
Stars: 4/5
Pros: Intriguing premise. Badass and resourceful heroine. Tight action. Fascinating dreamworld.
Cons: The supernatural aspect is a lot less prominent than one would expect, until late in the story. The main character can be abrasive and goes from mistrust to love in a jiffy. The "historical" interpolations are a bit tedious and not really necessary. There's a questionable sex scene, and a string of repetitions ("babe", "girl" "stupid cow") that get old fast.
WARNING! Blood, gore, violence, murder, dismemberment, near-drowning, fire. Familial trauma, kidnapping, imprisonment, forced pregnancy, attempted suicide, homophobia, bullying, copious swearing. Contains a detailed F/F sex scene.
Will appeal to: Those who enjoy a mixture of thriller and supernatural with plenty of action. Those who can get behind a tough female character without a maternal bone in her body.

Blurb: Jenna's life has always been a fight. From the traumatic and mysterious loss of her mother on a dark woodland road when she was fifteen, to the abusive and controlling boyfriend she's recently escaped, she has learned that trust hurts you in the end. Now Jenna's found what she hopes is happiness with her new girlfriend, Holly. But the world is full of darkness - some of it ancient, some of it closer to home... Evil, and those who serve it, will not let Jenna go. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on Edelweiss. Thanks to Watkins Publishing LTD/Angry Robot for providing an ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

MAGICAL CRESCENDO

I'll be honest: I expected The Ravening to be less of an action-y thriller and more of a "classic" supernatural haunting. But though I would have liked to spend more time in the dreamworld Church created because it was super-cool (and because that's how I roll 😉), I appreciated how he slowly introduced more and more supernatural cues into a seemingly average (well, in a manner of speaking) abduction-and-escape story, only to finally give the fantastical elements center stage and reveal the mythological foundations of his narrative (I'm not going to be more specific in order to avoid spoilers, but basically, Church put a wild and creative spin on a well-known classical myth). It's a testament to the author's ability to weave a tale that never lets up - and to come up with a flawed, yet relatable and strong heroine - if I was able to enjoy a story employing one of my less favourite narrative devices (the aforementioned abduction-and-escape), so chances are that those of you who aren't fond of this kind of stories will be entertained enough to read on, and get to the supernatural bits in all their glory 🙂. [...]

Katrina Monroe: "Through the Midnight Door" (ARC Review)

Title: Through the Midnight Door [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Katrina Monroe [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2024
Age: 18+
Stars: 4.5/5
Pros: Creative twist on the magical/evil house trope. Excellent characterisation.
Cons: The supernatural experiences inside the house could have been fleshed out more. A familial problem gets resolved too easily. There's some confusion about the characters' ages (though for all I know, it might have been fixed in the finished version).
WARNING! Blood and gore, implied suicide, self-harm, abuse/child abuse (not sexual), poverty, child loss, kidnapping, stalking, manipulation, alcoholism, vomiting, car-crash imagery, bug horror, fires. On the mental-health side: PTST, paranoia, OCD, depression, grief, guilt, generational trauma.
Will appeal to: Those who enjoy a visceral examination of trauma and strained sisterly relationships on the backdrop of an atmospheric supernatural thriller.

Blurb: The Finch sisters once spent long, hot summers exploring the dozens of abandoned properties littering their dying town - until they found an impossible home with an endless hall of doors…and three keys left waiting for them. Curious, fearless, they stepped inside their chosen rooms, and experienced horrors they never dared speak of again. Now, years later, youngest sister Claire has been discovered dead in that old, desiccated house. Haunted by their sister's suicide and the memories of a past they've struggled to forget, Meg and Esther find themselves at bitter odds. As they navigate the tensions of their brittle relationship, they draw unsettling lines between Claire's death, their own haunted memories, and a long-ago loss no one in their family has ever been able to face. With the house once again pulling them ever-closer, Meg and Esther must find the connection between their sister's death and the shadow that has chased them across the years...before the darkness claims them, too. (Amazon)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks for providing an ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

SISTERS IN HARMS

Haunted/cursed/magical/evil houses have been a horror trope for ages, and 2024 in particular turned out to be rife of novels that put them front and center - I've read three in the last weeks alone, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. This is why it's all the more remarkable that some authors are still able to spin a fresh story around spooky mansions, as it's the case with Through the Midnight Door. I'll be honest though - in this book, it's the complex, often frayed relationship between three sisters (and their characterisation as individuals, or with regard to other people) that steals the scene. That's not to say that the house portion of the story doesn't deliver, though I expected a tad more (I'll come to that in a minute), and there's no denying that the other supernatural occurrences sprinkled throughout the novel are appropriately chilling - but the sisterly dynamic remains the core of the narrative, and a strong one at that. Through the Midnight Door weaves sibling rivalry/dependency, dysfunctional and toxic relationships, familial trauma, mental health issues, yet it's an uplifting story in what its protagonists are doing their best to bring justice to their dead sister, conquer the darkness that's trying to engulf them, and ultimately, find their way back to each other. [...]

Abigail Miles: "The Building That Wasn't" (ARC Review)

Title: The Building That Wasn't [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Abigail Miles [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Multiverse, Sci-Fi, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2024
Age: 16+ (the book is geared towards adults, but can be read by mature teens)
Stars: 4/5
Pros: Merges a few sci-fi tropes and puts a clever and creative spin on them. Employs a peculiar writing style.
Cons: The pace is slow at times. There's an impalpable distance between the reader and the characters.
WARNING! Blood, torture (mostly off-screen), violence, domestic violence (off-screen), fires, claustrophobic spaces.
Will appeal to: Those who enjoy a creepy twist on the multiverse theory peppered with a generous dose of mad science, a sizeable amount of family secrets and a dash of romance.

Blurb: When Everly Tertium encounters a strange man in the park claiming to be her grandfather, she is invited to visit a mysterious apartment building. There, she finds herself in a constant state of déjà vu, impossibly certain that she’s already lived through these moments, already been introduced to these people, and already visited all of these rooms and floors. So why does she have no idea what’s happening to her? The longer she stays in the building, the more Everly becomes convinced there is more going on than meets the eye. Something is off, time seems to pass differently, and the people living there seem trapped. Slowly, Everly begins to wonder if she is trapped too. But would she even want to leave, if she could? (Amazon)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on Edelweiss. Thanks to CamCat Books for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

THROWN FOR A LOOP

The Building That Wasn't is one of those books - the ones you can't review at length lest you reveal too much. One of the genre label I used for it is a spoiler in itself, though it doesn't even begin to encompass the...peculiarity...or madness...of the situation as a whole. By way of introduction, suffice to say that, while the plot relies on a few familiar sci-fi tropes and themes, it combines and twists them (along with some new, intriguing ideas) into a complex, claustrophobic, at times brutal, yet ultimately hopeful tale. In a way, The Building That Wasn't reads almost like a modern (and dark) fable, due to both the writing style and the fractured timeline. As a matter of fact, the narrative weaves back and forth in time, with different characters at the forefront (briefly but effectively including the building itself, which is really cool), and though I guess some of the event depicted will make more sense on a second read, Miles managed to create an engaging web of mystery while giving out a piece of the puzzle at a time, if you pay attention. I must admit I was fooled when it comes to the identity of the mysterious Warden, who runs the building, because there could have been at least another contender for that role (I mean, in my opinion...even if a certain detail should have alerted me, but I interpreted it in a different way), and I didn't expect the story to unfold the way it did; but even if I had, it would have been worth my time nevertheless. [...]

Quinn Connor: "The Pecan Children" (ARC Review)

Title: The Pecan Children [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Quinn Connor [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Contemporary with a Twist, Supernatural, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2024

Age: 16+ (I shelved it as Adult because of the characters' age, and it's indeed marketed to that demographic, but it can be read by mature teens. There are far more graphic YA books out there)

Stars: 5/5
Pros: Atmospheric, engrossing, spellbinding, inventive, ultimately hopeful.
Cons: Slow first half (if you prefer stories with more than a modicum of action). While the scope of the main twist (and its implications) will take readers completely by surprise, the authors dropped enough clues to have them figure out the basic truth early on. Some questions remain unanswered. The ending may be too open for certain readers.
WARNING! Fires/burns, wounds, near-drownings, some gore. Death of a parent (off-page). A couple of (tame) sex scenes.
Will appeal to: Those who like sibling narratives. Those who enjoy a mixture of cozy and unsettling, beauty and horror. Those who are in for a unique kind of haunting.

Blurb: In a small southern pecan town, the annual harvest is a time of both celebration and heartbreak. Even as families are forced to sell their orchards and move away, Lil Clearwater, keeper of a secret covenant with her land, swears she never will. When her twin Sasha returns to the dwindling town in hopes of reconnecting with the girl her heart never forgot, the sisters struggle to bridge their differences and share the immense burden of protecting their home from hungry forces intent on uprooting everything they love. But there is rot hiding deep beneath the surface. Ghostly fires light up the night, and troubling local folklore is revealed to be all too true. Confronted with the phantoms of their pasts and the devastating threat to their future, the sisters come to the stark realization that in the kudzu-choked South, nothing is ever as it appears. (Amazon)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: this title was up for grabs on NetGalley (in the Read Now section). Thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

SURPRISE MOVE

The Pecan Children ended up going in a different direction than I had anticipated, and I mean it in the best possible sense. Based on the synopsis (which has all the reasons to be vague, since with books like this one, spoilers are just around the corner), I expected a contemporary story with a strong supernatural core - a troubled sibling relationship on the backdrop of a dilapidated town rife with secrets and malevolent forces. Now that I know what I know, I realise that the synopsis isn't meant to be misleading, and truth be told, it encapsulates the book fairly well...on a level. The fact is, The Pecan Children is SO. MUCH. MORE than its blurb lets on, and even if the authors start dropping a certain set of clues early in the story, I wasn't prepared for the scope and manner of the big reveal - and its implications. In hindsight, the twist is not only jaw-dropping and exciting, but it perfectly fits the claustrophobic, lethargic setting, and it's an equally perfect vehicle for the "allegory of decay in small-town America" the editorial notes promise. Also, in lieu of a supernatural mystery, this book turned out to be a strong specimen of the magical realism genre, though with elements that straddle the line between the two. Another pleasant surprise, since through the magical realism lens, the social commentary and sibling dynamic get to shine in a way that a mere supernatural context wouldn't have allowed. [...]

Matteo L. Cerilli: "Lockjaw" (ARC Review)

Title: Lockjaw [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Matteo L. Cerilli [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Alas, nothing to see here, since revealing the genre(s) would ruin your reading experience...If you want to go into the book without knowing anything vital about it, I recommend that you not read the Labels at the end of my review either. No need to worry though - the review itself will be spoiler-free...
Year: 2024
Age: 14+
Stars: 4/5
Pros: A captivating look at friendship, sisterhood, marginalised identities on one hand, power abuse and lack of empathy/conspiracy of silence in a suburban setting on the other. Includes a brilliant twist that puts all the previous events in perspective.
Cons: Slow start. Some metaphor iterations.
WARNING! Blood and gore, violence, near-drowning, animal deaths. Toxic/neglecting adults, domestic violence (off-page), bulling, racism, transphobia (also internalised).
Will appeal to: Those who like books that straddle the line between the ordinary and the supernatural. Those who enjoy stories about a (diverse) band of misfits.

Blurb: Chuck Warren died tragically at the old abandoned mill, but Paz Espino knows it was no accident - there's a monster under the town, and she's determined to kill it before anyone else gets hurt. She'll need the help of her crew- inseparable friends, bound by a childhood pact stronger than diamonds, distance or death - to hunt it down. But she's up against a greater force of evil than she ever could have imagined. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on Edelweiss. Thanks to Penguin Random House/Tundra Books for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

PULLING THE RUG

To me, this book has a "before" and an "after". At first I was baffled, because while it was marketed as YA, the protagonists seemed to be on the MG spectrum (11 going on 12), and the writing was very descriptive - two things that I don't fare well with; not to mention I hadn't signed for the first one, and I didn't understand how the very characters who were supposed to be the protagonists according to the synopsis could be younger than the synopsis itself promised (see the "trans YA horror" label). Then a few different, older perspectives started to appear (YA, NA), and the style partly changed as the action took over, so I began to enjoy the story more...but things definitely shifted for me midway through, when a mind-blowing twist changed my whole perspective about the previous (and present) events, and left me both in awe and desperate to unravel the mystery. Mind you, the twist didn't come out of the blue - Cerilli left enough bread crumbs on the way to it that all the pieces fell into place once the reveal happened, all while being able to cover his tracks. Before the twist, a couple, maybe three incidents made my brain tingle for a moment, but then I proceeded to rationalise them and promptly forget about that "something is off" feeling...also because the truth was too outrageous to figure out. All I can say is, said twist put the story firmly into the "weird and wonderful" territory that I favour in literature, and made all the difference for me in terms of REALLY enjoying this novel. [...]

Seanan McGuire: "Tidal Creatures" (ARC Review)

Title: Tidal Creatures [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: Alchemical Journeys (3rd of 5 books)
Author: Seanan McGuire [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural
Year: 2024
Age: 16+ (the book is geared towards adults, but can be read by mature teens)
Stars: 5/5
Pros: Fascinating concept. Rich mythology. Characters who transcend the page.
Cons: Complex. On the other hand, the murder-mystery part isn't hard to figure out, once you have the necessary information.
WARNING! Some gruesome deaths/imagery (people melting included).
Will appeal to: Those who loved Book 1 in the series and were less keen on Book 2. Those who need more Roger and Dodger. Those who enjoy a creative, exciting twist on gods incarnate and the heart of creation. 

Blurb: All across the world, people look up at the moon and dream of gods. Gods of knowledge and wisdom, gods of tides and longevity. Over time, some of these moon gods incarnated into the human world alongside the other manifest natural concepts. Their job is to cross the sky above the Impossible City - the heart of all creation - to keep it connected to reality. And someone is killing them. There are so many of them that it's easy for a few disappearances to slip through the cracks. But they aren't limitless. In the name of the moon, the lunar divinities must uncover the roots of the plot and thwart the true goal of those behind these attacks - control of the Impossible City itself. (Amazon)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Tor/Forge for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

NEW HEIGHTS

Let's get it out of the way: if you adored Middlegame but felt that Seasonal Fears was a bit of a letdown, you only need to read Tidal Creatures to fall in love with the series all over again. And no, not only because this time Roger and Dodger play a huge part in it (though it does help 😉 😍). For one, the amount of exposition is just right - there's a lot to take in, that's for sure, and some of the concepts are tackled more than once, but you never feel like you're hammered over the head with them when it happens. Every time the god-incarnate situation, the alchemical procedures or the Impossible City (a.k.a. the center of creation) are discussed, the reader is given a new piece of information, or sees a familiar event from a new angle (or from a new character's eyes), so that in the end everything is an essential tassel to the book's mosaic, the same way as the Lunar gods need to come together to become the Moon that shines over the City itself. But this is just one of the reasons why this book restored my faith in the series... [...]

Kelly Link: "The Book of Love" (ARC Review)

Title: The Book of Love [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Kelly Link [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Afterlife, Supernatural, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2024
Age: 16+ (the protagonists are 18 and 17, and on the whole it's more of a NA book than a YA one...The dealbreaker here are the pretty graphic sex scenes, definitely more appropriate for an older audience, but I'm hesitant to call this an "adult" book because of the characters' age)
Stars: 5/5
Pros: Imaginative, inclusive, delightfully quirky. Populated by flawed, yet endearing characters who feel very real. Written in an apparently effortless, yet magical (and sometimes funny) prose.
Cons: Long (though never boring) - if you prefer your books to be on the shorter side. Contains brief but frequent bouts of (graphic) sex - if you'd rather read clean books.
WARNING! Some horror/gore. Death of a parent. Grief. Racism. Sexual content.
Will appeal to: Those who like a dark yet magical, cheeky yet tender small-town fantasy with coming-of-age themes.

Blurb: Laura, Daniel and Mo disappeared without trace a year ago. They have long been presumed dead. Which they were. But now they are not. And it is up to the resurrected teenagers to discover what happened to them. Revived by Mr Anabin - the man they knew as their high school music teacher - they are offered a chance to return to the mortal realm. But first they must solve the mystery of their death and learn to use the magic they now possess. And only two of them may stay. What they do not realise is their return has upset a delicate balance that has held - just - for centuries. (Amazon)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Head of Zeus for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

I CONTAIN MULTITUDES

Every book whose synopsis promises dead/undead protagonists is guaranteed to have my attention - though I don't necessarily read all of them. But The Book of Love turned out to be much more than the story of three deceased teens who come back to life. For one, it encompasses a number of genres - building on its afterlife premise, it soon turns into a mystery, a supernatural fantasy with a magical-realism feel, and a strong coming-of-age narrative, while even incorporating a tongue-in-cheek, yet fond homage to romance novels. It's both dreamy and brutal, tender and acerbic, with messy characters you can't help but love and who feel like flesh and blood even when they're...something else. It's a love letter to music and writing. It touches upon/explores all kinds to familial bonds/relationships, even the strained ones (divorced/absent parents, sibling rivalries, your friends' friends whom you don't necessarily like). It's got queer and POC rep done right (also, "trans women are women" 👍), and it addresses racism in different forms (I particularly appreciated the discourse about publishing as a Black author in the typically white romance panorama. The book is set in 2014, but I'm afraid part of that still stands). At the end of the day, if this novel does incorporate a few familiar tropes (some of them slightly Buffy-adjacent), it spins them into an imaginative story that's much bigger than the sum of its parts. [...]

Mallory Pearson: "We Ate the Dark" (ARC Review)

Title: We Ate the Dark [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None so far (though according to a Goodreads reviewer, the author has - had? - a duology in mind)
Author: Mallory Pearson [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural, Afterlife, Multiverse, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2024
Age: 16+ (technically an adult book, but it can be read by mature teens. See the WARNING! section though)
Stars: 4/5
Pros: Visceral and lyrical (if dark) celebration of found family, queer love, female friendship, and everything in between.
Cons: Metaphor galore - some of them over the top or bizarre. Open ending, with loose threads that were likely left for a potential sequel to pick.
WARNING! Horror and gore, violence (not of the sexual kind), near-drowning, fire, darkness (in the literal sense), claustrophobic spaces, evil spirit possession, extreme grief. 
Will appeal to: Those who love a story that crosses the space between all-consuming friendship and queer love. 

Blurb: Five years after Sofia Lyon disappeared, her remains are found stuffed into the hollow of a tree bursting through the floorboards of an abandoned house in the woods. The women who loved her flock home to the North Carolina hills to face their grief. Frankie, Sofia’s twin, is in furious mourning. Poppy is heartbroken. Cass has never felt more homesick. And Marya knows something the rest of them don’t. Determined to find Sofia’s murderer, they share more than a need to see justice done for their friend. As Sofia’s secrets unravel, so do those of the woods, and the women soon realize that Sofia might not be who they thought she was at all. And that whoever - or whatever - killed her is coming after them. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: this title was up for grabs on NetGalley (in the Read Now section). Thanks to 47North for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

SHADES OF LOVE

Let's address the elephant in the room first, because it's not like it's a secret: We Ate the Dark has a low average rating on Goodreads. Now, I don't mean to invalidate my fellow readers' opinions...but I'm surprised at the number of bad reviews this book is receiving. I get where most of them are coming from (more about that later), but at the same time, I found a lot to love in this story, and I'm going to tell you what it is.

Look, I may be a tad biased, because Pearson put together a lot of my favourite elements for this story: ghosts, haunted houses, alternate universes, a murder mystery, and a found family of women who just won't quit. But there's a lot more in here that I didn't expect and quite liked. Three old friends whose paths diverged after one of them disappeared are brought together by a shocking discovery (another trope I can't seem to tire of), and set on getting justice for one of them, all while trying to forgive and forget the hurt they've inflicted on one another, yet at the same time remember what they used to be for one another. Plus a newcomer with a gift that's more of a burden manages to get accepted into their circle, and does her best to make them realise she belongs with them. Cycling through the voices of all four girls (not to mention those of the missing twin and a separate female character), We Ate the Dark is first and foremost an exploration of female friendship and queer love and the liminal space between the two, from teenhood to new adulthood. I've never had relationship like those in the book, and yet the author was able to make me believe in each and every one of them. While there's no evident homophobia in the story, at least one of the characters tries to forge a more "traditional" sexual identity for herself, setting the whole tragedy in motion. But it's a different tragedy than you'd expect, and the focus of the story remains on the bond among women, the nuances of their relationships, the family that fails you and the one you make for yourself. And here's where Pearson's writing excels, down to the phenomenal single chapter in first person plural. [...]