Review: Bad Things Happen Here by Rebecca Barrow {#Ad)

I was sent this proof for free by Hot Key Books for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Links with an asterisk (*) are Ad: Affiliate Links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I'll make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Bad Things Happen Here by Rebecca Barrow

Published: 28th June 2022 | Publisher: Hot Key Books | Source:
Rebecca Barrow’s Website

With compelling characters, broken friendships and complicated romances, Bad Things Happen Here is the irresistible YA murder mystery thriller: it makes your heart race, your toes curl, and your mind whirl with deadly secrets, dark truths and the innate need to escape a poisonous paradise.

The island of Parris: paradise or poison?

Luca Laine Thomas lives in Parris, the beautiful island plagued by the unsolved deaths of young women - most significantly, Luca's best friend. All Luca wants is to heal from the traumatic loss and leave her feelings of guilt and helplessness behind.

Then Luca comes home to find the police at her house. Her sister, Whitney, is dead.

Luca and Naomi, the new girl next door, decide to take the investigation into their own hands, and along the way their connection deepens. Soon, their casual touches and innocent flirtations become something way more real. But finding out what happened on the night of Whitney's disappearance reveals lie upon lie.

Nothing is as it seems. Will Luca's search finally reveal truth about her sister's murder? And will she unravel and escape the clutches of the curse and survive Parris? From The StoryGraph.

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The StoryGraph | Goodreads

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features blood, vomit, anxiety and panic attacks, depression, reference to drug use, masturbation, reference to arson, reference to someone burning alive, a corpse, fatphobia, racism, self-harm, reference to discrimination of those with mental illness, suicide ideation, and reference to rape.

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Review: From Dust, A Flame by Rebecca Podos (#Ad)

I was sent a proof for free by Harper360YA for the purposes of providing an honest review.

From Dust, A Flame by Rebecca Podos

Published: 8th March 2022 | Publisher: Balzer + Bray | Source: Publisher
Rebecca Podos’ Website

Lambda Literary Award–-winning author Rebecca Podos returns with a rich, transporting, genre-bending contemporary Jewish fantasy about the power of history, the complicated nature of family, and the search for identity amidst it all.

Hannah’s whole life has been spent in motion. Her mother has kept her and her brother, Gabe, on the road for as long as she can remember, leaving a trail of rental homes and faded relationships behind them. No roots, no family but one another, and no explanations.

All that changes on Hannah’s seventeenth birthday when she wakes up transformed, a pair of golden eyes with knife-slit pupils blinking back at her from the mirror—the first of many such impossible mutations. Promising that she knows someone who can help, her mother leaves Hannah and Gabe behind to find a cure. But as the days turn to weeks and their mother doesn’t return, they realize it’s up to them to find the truth.

What they discover is a family they never knew and a history more tragic and fantastical than Hannah could have dreamed—one that stretches back to her grandmother’s childhood in Prague under the Nazi occupation, and beyond, into the realm of Jewish mysticism and legend. As the past comes crashing into the present, Hannah must hurry to unearth their family’s secrets—and confront her own hidden legacy in order to break the curse and save the people she loves most, as well as herself.

Rebecca Podos, award-winning author of Like Water, returns with a contemporary fantasy of enduring love, unfathomable loss, and the power of stories to hold us together when it seems that nothing else can. From The StoryGraph.

The StoryGraph | Goodreads

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features blood, death, grief, a missing person, reference to dementia, intergenerational trauma, discussion of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, and reference of Nazis.

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Ad: Titles with an asterisk (*) were provided to me for free by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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Blog Tour: Truth Be Told by Sue Divin

I'm really excited to have YA author Sue Divin stop by the blog today for my stop on the Truth Be Told* blog tour. Sue is here a guest post on writing YA voices and about post-peace deal Northern Ireland in YA fiction.

I’m always drawn to the wilder, edgier characters first. Their voices come much easier. In Guard Your Heart^, that was Aidan. In Truth Be Told, it was Tara. I just love the rough diamonds. Once I find their voice, they just run off onto the page and take on a life of their own. Sometimes when I’m still trying to ‘find’ a unique voice for them, I experiment with their characters in flash fiction or short stories.

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Review: Extasia by Claire Legrand (#Ad)

I was sent this proof for free by Harper360YA for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Links with an asterisk (*) are Ad: Affiliate Links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I'll make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Extasia by Claire Legrand

Published: 3rd March 2022 | Publisher: Harper360 | Source: Publisher
Claire Legrand’s Website

A must-read for fans of Victoria Schwab and Elana K. Arnold, this terrifying YA standalone from New York Times bestselling author Claire Legrand follows a girl who joins a coven to protect her village from a powerful religious cult.

Her name is unimportant.

All you must know is that today she will become one of the four saints of Haven. The elders will mark her and place the red hood on her head. With her sisters, she will stand against the evil power that lives beneath the black mountain—an evil that has already killed nine of her village’s men.

She will tell no one of the white-eyed beasts that follow her. Or the faceless gray women tall as houses. Or the girls she saw kissing in the elm grove.

Today she will be a saint of Haven. She will rid her family of her mother’s shame at last and save her people from destruction. She is not afraid. Are you?

Claire Legrand, author of Sawkill Girls, returns with an emotionally searing and lyrically written novel that beckons readers to follow its fierce heroine into a world filled with secrets and blood—where the truth is buried in lies and a devastating power waits, seething, for someone brave enough to use it. From The StoryGraph.

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The StoryGraph | Goodreads

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features body horror; visceral, gorey descriptions of violence; violence against women; domestic violence; forced imprisonment; attempted rape; torture; cannibalism; and someone being burnt alive.

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Review: The Girls are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh

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The Girls are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh

Published: 7th September 2021 | Publisher: Razorbill | Source: Bought
Sarah Glenn Marsh’s Website

Dare Chase doesn’t believe in ghosts.

Privately, she’s a supernatural skeptic. But publicly, she’s keeping her doubts to herself—because she’s the voice of Attachments, her brand-new paranormal investigation podcast, and she needs her ghost-loving listeners to tune in.

That’s what brings her to Arrington Estate. Thirty years ago, teenager Atheleen Bell drowned in Arrington’s lake, and legend says her spirit haunts the estate. Dare’s more interested in the suspicious circumstances surrounding her death—circumstances that she believes point to a living culprit, not the supernatural. Still, she’s vowed to keep an open mind as she investigates, even if she’s pretty sure what she’ll find.

But Arrington is full of surprises. Good ones like Quinn, the cute daughter of the house’s new owner. And baffling ones like the threatening messages left scrawled in paint on Quinn’s walls, the ghastly face that appears behind Dare’s own in the mirror, and the unnatural current that nearly drowns their friend Holly in the lake. As Dare is drawn deeper into the mysteries of Arrington, she’ll have to rethink the boundaries of what is possible. Because if something is lurking in the lake... it might not be willing to let her go. From The StoryGraph.

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The StoryGraph | Goodreads

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features vomite, and almost drowning.

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Review: The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

Published: 3rd August 2021 | Publisher: Wednesday Books | Source: Bought
Courtney Gould’s Website

Courtney Gould's thrilling YA debut The Dead and the Dark is about the things that lurk in dark corners, the parts of you that can't remain hidden, and about finding home in places--and people--you didn't expect.

The Dark has been waiting for far too long, and it won't stay hidden any longer.

Something is wrong in Snakebite, Oregon. Teenagers are disappearing, some turning up dead, the weather isn't normal, and all fingers seem to point to TV's most popular ghost hunters who have just returned to town. Logan Ortiz-Woodley, daughter of TV's ParaSpectors, has never been to Snakebite before, but the moment she and her dads arrive, she starts to get the feeling that there's more secrets buried here than they originally let on.

Ashley Barton's boyfriend was the first teen to go missing, and she's felt his presence ever since. But now that the Ortiz-Woodleys are in town, his ghost is following her and the only person Ashley can trust is the mysterious Logan. When Ashley and Logan team up to figure out who--or what--is haunting Snakebite, their investigation reveals truths about the town, their families, and themselves that neither of them are ready for. As the danger intensifies, they realize that their growing feelings for each other could be a light in the darkness. From The StoryGraph.

The StoryGraph | Goodreads

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features claustrophobia/dreams of being buried alive, homophobia, attempted drowning, gun violence, strangulation, and child death.

Continue reading Review: The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

Ad: Titles with an asterisk (*) were provided to me for free by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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Sapphic YA for Halloween

October starts tomorrow, and Halloween is just around the corner, so everyone will start putting together their TBRs for the month of all things spooky! So I thought I'd help you along with a list of sapphic YA horror and supernatural reads perfect for this time of year.

Perfectly Preventable Deaths by Deirdre Sullivan

Everyone in Ballyfran has a secret, and that is what binds them together...

Fifteen-year-old twins Madeline and Catlin move to a new life in Ballyfran, a strange isolated town, a place where, for the last sixty years, teenage girls have gone missing in the surrounding mountains.

As distance grows between the twins - as Catlin falls in love, and Madeline begins to understand her own nascent witchcraft - Madeline discovers that Ballyfrann is a place full of predators. Not only foxes, owls and crows, but also supernatural beings who for many generations have congregated here to escape persecution. When Catlin falls into the gravest danger of all, Madeline must ask herself who she really is, and who she wants to be - or rather, who she might have to become to save her sister.

Dark and otherworldly, this is an enthralling story about the bond between sisters and the sacrifices we make for those we care about the most. From StoryGraph.

Bookshop^ | StoryGraph | Goodreads

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