A page-turning sequel with a little bit of everything for teen horror fans.
In a small, eerie Massachusetts town, a mystery that’s been only partially solved begs to be untangled.
Two weeks ago, Evie Archer discovered a place called the Shadow Land, a dark underworld where restless spirits reside. Though she and her brother, Stan, escaped and returned safely to their family, Evie’s crush, Desmond King, did not. While everyone else accepts his probable death, Evie won’t accept that he’s really dead. Whatever has been unleashed is affecting other people in town, and a dark hypnosis begins to spread. Evie searches for the notes her ghostly friend, Holly, mentioned, and with the help of (living) friends Tina Sànchez, who’s Puerto Rican, and Sai Rockwell, an Indian and white boy from England, she begins to piece together a mystery stretching back generations that will lead her to answers about Desmond’s fate, as well as the real source of the Shadow Land’s darkness. This unsettling, well-paced story unfolds with enough twists and unpredictability to keep even seasoned horror readers rapt. The characters are entertaining and distinctively drawn despite the plot-driven narrative. Multiple ghost stories, complex family dynamics surrounding Evie and Stan’s unreliable father, and a satisfying ending round out a fun, frightening winter holiday–season novel that’s perfect for fans of authors such as Kate Alice Marshall and Ginny Myers Sain. Evie’s family presents white; Desmond reads Black.
A page-turning sequel with a little bit of everything for teen horror fans. (Horror. 12-18)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593523117
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging
Audrey Rose Wadsworth, 17, would rather perform autopsies in her uncle’s dark laboratory than find a suitable husband, as is the socially acceptable rite of passage for a young, white British lady in the late 1800s.
The story immediately brings Audrey into a fractious pairing with her uncle’s young assistant, Thomas Cresswell. The two engage in predictable rounds of “I’m smarter than you are” banter, while Audrey’s older brother, Nathaniel, taunts her for being a girl out of her place. Horrific murders of prostitutes whose identities point to associations with the Wadsworth estate prompt Audrey to start her own investigation, with Thomas as her sidekick. Audrey’s narration is both ponderous and polemical, as she sees her pursuit of her goals and this investigation as part of a crusade for women. She declares that the slain aren’t merely prostitutes but “daughters and wives and mothers,” but she’s also made it a point to deny any alignment with the profiled victims: “I am not going as a prostitute. I am simply blending in.” Audrey also expresses a narrow view of her desired gender role, asserting that “I was determined to be both pretty and fierce,” as if to say that physical beauty and liking “girly” things are integral to feminism. The graphic descriptions of mutilated women don’t do much to speed the pace.
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging . (Historical thriller. 15-18)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-27349-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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