Readers will dive in so deep they might forget to come up for air.
A tropical paradise is haunted by a dangerous secret.
After elite athlete Addie’s horrific free-diving accident—she’s dead for eight and a half minutes—her mother brings Addie along on her honeymoon so Addie won’t be alone as her injured lungs recover. Their destination’s Eulalie Island, a private Caribbean island. Apart from the island’s caretakers (and their two sons), they have the island to themselves. So why does it sound like the birds are calling Addie’s name—and who’s the giggling child she keeps hearing? As more strange things happen—the white flowers turn pink and then darken, vines behave strangely—Addie digs deeper into the history of the island, from its 1700s castaway namesake to a doomed Bostonian family from 1843. (The brutal colonialism of the region is mentioned, but Eulalie explicitly has no history of Indigenous peoples or European settlement.) Addie grows closer to the son of one of the caretakers and is introduced to a deep freshwater sinkhole where she feels no pain and can hold her breath long enough to free dive again. But being favored by the island and its supernatural inhabitants proves dangerous to more than just Addie. The tropical setting is refreshing for its Victorian ghost-story vibe, the characters are likable, and the story’s mystery threads weave together into a delightfully eerie tapestry. Characters default to White.
Readers will dive in so deep they might forget to come up for air. (Horror. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-46536-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
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
A fresh, generous, wide-ranging compendium of frights.
Spooky stories covering multiple subgenres, plus some added attractions.
Few horrific tropes or creepy conventions are overlooked in Duplessie’s debut. The stories are arranged into six sections: “Short Frights for Dark Nights,” “Anatomical Anomalies,” “Five Minutes in the Future,” “Be Careful Who You Trust,” “The Dark Web,” and “The Unearthly, the Ghoulish, and the Downright Monstrous.” Some of the best entries are grounded in familiar setups, but Duplessie is careful to avoid repetition. The stories’ relatively short lengths and the crisp, direct writing style make this volume inviting for even reluctant readers, but it doesn’t shy away from the truly terrifying and grotesque. That said, the grisliest events are often described with poetic elegance rather than gratuitous violence: “His face collapsed like an empty paper bag.” The stories frequently conclude with the suggestion of frights to come rather than graphic depictions. One ends with an overly curious girl getting sealed up in a brick wall. Another foreshadows the murderous power of a cellphone. Highlights include the eerie “The Reaping,” in which the prick of a rose’s thorn triggers a spate of bloodlust, and “Chamber of Horrors,” which features a murderous iron maiden. Each story ends with a bonus in the form of a QR code and instructions to “scan the code for a scare”—if readers dare. Short, eerie poems are peppered throughout; there are even a handful of riddles. Most characters read white; names cue some ethnic diversity.
A fresh, generous, wide-ranging compendium of frights. (Horror. 13-18)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780063266483
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
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