THEY CALL HER REGRET

Simone Washington is turning 18, and she wants to throw the spookiest party ever for her Pinegrove Academy friends.

She’s planning to hold a sleepover at a cabin in the woods near Yearwood Lake. Popularly known as Doll’s Head Lake, the locale is reputed to be haunted by a ghost and is littered with the body parts of dolls that people leave as offerings. The setting is perfect for creepy campfire stories and scary pranks, but the party takes a terrible turn when Simone does something that costs her best friend, Kira, her life. Hoping to undo the damage, she makes a deal with Regret, a cursed witch who’s trapped at the lake: If Simone can free the witch in 14 days, she’ll save Kira and erase her own regrets too. Every morning a doll named Gabby Greta counts down the days, reminding Simone that the clock is ticking. This atmospheric story leads Simone on a quest that involves searching the town archives and conducting unsettling interviews with local elders. While unearthing the tragic past, she’s forced to confront her own history. Desamours’ sophomore novel, which centers on a Black cast, features an intriguing historical ghost story that mirrors contemporary events. She includes plenty of red herrings and misdirection, carefully doling the clues out in a way that maintains a strong, suspenseful forward momentum and respects readers’ deductive reasoning skills.

Suspenseful and well-paced; a strong addition to the genre.