User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Oh myyyyyyyyy.... I couldn’t even finish my sentence! This is sooooooooooo darrrrkkk!
This is disturbing! This is uniquely mind blowing! That’s the earth shattering, WTH I just read, head spinning, inner demons summoning novel I was looking for so long!
My moviemaker mind worked overtime during my reading because I truly saw the scenes in my head!
Something eerie, terrifying, extremely ominous, haunted is watching you behind at each chapter! It slowly gets under your skin, captures your mind, paralyzes you! You get speechless and numb! That’s what I felt when I was reading this book or watching it in my mind!
It was like the mash up of best Supernatural episodes meet Stephen King’s Outsider with amazing LGBTQ representation! Especially the conservative, hostile, agitated townies against ghost hunter reality show producer gay couple ( once upon a time they were two of them, they were born and raised at this land! ) and their adopted 18 years old girl who is also gay is a delicious story line to hook you up!
But that’s not the main story: darkness lure around the town, hunting young adults, sucking the last drip of hope and happiness from its people’s hearts!
Two main feelings you get when you read this stunning, original story: loneliness and pure hatred!
Logan Ortiz-Woodley, dragging from town to town because of their fathers’ longtime popular show and cheap motels become her second home.
She feels so lonely, her fathers keep secrets from her: she can feel it! And their last stop Snakebite made them feel like they bit more than they can chew. It could be literally their final stop as something so dark and dangerous hunt the young population of town!
Logan wants to clear her fathers’ name because entire townies think the disappearance of Tristan connected with their return to town!
Logan teams up with Ashley Barton who is girlfriend of Tristan, seeing his ghost, feeling his existence which make her friends worry about her. Logan gets used to witness irrational things and she wants to know what happened to Tristan because searching the secrets of town may help her to learn more about herself.
Ashley and Logan forms an unconventional friendship which gets negative attention of townies. And another young boy gets disappears! Things get more heated! Are two young girls ready to fight against the invisible monster? Maybe the real monster is already at their inner circle and they’re so clueless about the danger lurking around!
Prepare to scream and hide under your bed as like I did during my read. Even after finishing the book, it took two hours to leave my hiding place!
It’s brilliant, twisty, surprising reading which earned my full, eerie, creepy, bleak five stars!
Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/ Wednesday Books for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.
Rating: really liked it
↠ 5 starsSometimes a family can be a lesbian, her girlfriend, and her two ghosthunting dads, and I think that is truly beautiful. The editor for The Dead and the Dark described it as “like Riverdale, but good,” and they are absolutely right about it. In a quiet town in Oregon on the edge of nowhere, the tragic disappearance of a young boy marks the beginning of a descent into upheaval. Enter into the chaos TV’s resident ghost hunting duo, Brandon and Alejo, returning to their hometown of Snakebite after many years in hopes of solving the disappearance. Joining them in this endeavor is their daughter Logan, who has never felt more out of sorts than she has upon her arrival in the strange town. With more teenagers winding up missing, and still no answers in sight, Logan begins to take matters into her own hands as she enlists the aid of an unlikely stranger. Someone who just might help her discover what lurks behind the shadows.
Upon starting The Dead and the Dark, I began to feel myself slowly unwind as I was led deeper into its tangled web of secrets. Secrets that built up inside my mind until they threatened to crash down the very foundations that had been so delicately composed. All this is an elaborate way of saying that this book not only architectured an intricately layered horror story, but managed to make me cry in the process. A feat that has never been easily attained in my book. Courtney Gould’s inquiry into grief and loneliness is certainly one that evokes emotion and left me with not much else to do but grapple with all that had been expressed. The novel's subtle exposition of a darkness taking root in a small community, and the ramifications associated with giving such a darkness voice, was such a powerful component throughout. I've found that horror grounded in truth will always triumph over everything else and never fail to leave an impression on me. Which is perhaps the strongest part of this debut, and had me thinking for days afterward about the meaning behind it all. Going into this, all I really had in the back of my mind were two things: sapphics + ghosts, and dammit if either of them weren't flawlessly represented in all parts of the novel. The ghost hunting girlfriend representation the world was waiting for and we all deserve. From the cover alone, I should have known this book would give me everything I needed. A look into an eerie town and the secrets it contains, and a visualization of the resentment that often follows people from place to place. I loved the deep dive into family dynamics and the commentary on how unresolved trauma can adversely impact the relationship between parent and child. Throughout the sinister undertones, that remained apparent and was touched on well. The twisting nature and Stranger Things vibe of this will certainly draw people in, but much like the darkness at work within the town, they will stay entirely for one messy ghosthunting family.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this arc in exchange for an honest reviewTrigger warnings: blood, violence, murder, attempted murder, drowning, funeral, death of a main character, homophobia, homophobic language, hate crimes
Rating: really liked it
4.25 stars ✨
deliciously creepy tale of a queer dysfunctional family and a town which awaits their arrival.
"She could still feel him here, like there was a line connecting them. Wherever he was, he just needed someone to find him. He just needed someone to bring him home.”
The dead and dark is a deliciously creepy, spine tingling story full of twists and turns with family and love in between. A perfect mixture of mystery, horror, ghost and romance.
I thought I had it all figured out but then slowly the twists and turns starts to unfold and I was amazed at how this isn't your average ghost town murder mystery, it's more than that! It's all about the family Alejo Brandon and Logan built together.
Gould has a flair of expressing her ideas and making something simple look mysterious and creepy. The description of town Snakebite was creepily mellifluous. Her writing style is intriguing.
All characters were flawed and realistic, all trying their best yet end up hurting each other. A queer dysfunctional family which isn't what it look like. A mother and daughter on other hand trying their best to understand each other.
Overall I would highly recommend checking this one out. It's new and fresh.
Rating: really liked it
Logan Ortiz-Woodley has been bouncing around the country most of her life. Her Dads are the stars of television's most popular ghost-hunting show,
ParaSpectors, and owing to this, the family travels quite extensively for filming.
When they tell her they need to return to the hometown they fled years ago, Snakebite, Oregon, she doesn't think too much of it. It's just another stop on the road for another episode.
What Logan wasn't prepared for was the chilly reception her family would receive once in Snakebite. The town seems to blame her Dad, Brandon, for unusual occurrences following his most recent visit.
Because of this, Logan and a group of local teens get off to a rough start. There's been a lot of tension in the town since a popular boy, Tristan, went missing. In fact, on the day Logan arrives there is a vigil praying for Tristan's safe return.
His girlfriend, Ashley Barton, hasn't given up hope that Tristan will be found, although others aren't so sure.
Disturbingly, Ashley begins to be plagued by visions of what appears to be Tristan's ghost. Unsure what to do, she seeks help from the only person she can think of who may actually have knowledge of paranormal activity, Logan.
The girls begin a cautious friendship and start to investigate what is going on in Snakebite. As more teens disappear the stakes are raised, as is the creep factor.
In addition to all of this, Logan also learns a lot more about her Dads, their relationship and what caused them to leave Snakebite in the first place. She's been desperate to learn more about them, as her relationship with her Dad, Brandon, has been particularly strained.
The Dead and the Dark is a darkly compelling YA Paranormal Thriller. I really enjoyed diving into this story.
There's a lot of exploration of topics outside of the paranormal, such as family, sacrifice, grief, forgiveness, the idea of home being tied to people versus place and what it's like to be different in a small town.
I listened to the audiobook and was completely transported to Snakebite. It's that small town many of us grew up in. I felt like I had been there before and could recognize all the Town players.
For a debut, I was impressed with the flow of the story and the layers Gould was able to bring to the page. While the paranormal aspects, as well as the atmosphere, were a ton of fun, I think I enjoyed the family dynamic and character growth most of all.
If you enjoy Mystery Thrillers with a Paranormal twist, you absolutely need to add this title to your TBR!!
Thank you so much to the publisher, Wednesday Books and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies of this to read and review. I had a great time with it and cannot wait to see what Courtney Gould writes next!!!
Rating: really liked it
There are a lot of bad things in life. Stepping in a wet spot while wearing socks. Pouring a bowl of cereal or a cup of coffee and THEN realizing you're out of milk. When cookies go stale and they get all weird and tough.
There are even more just-okay things. Pretzels (of the non-soft variety). The new Star Wars movies (don't yell at me). BuzzFeed quizzes (I don't have a parenthetical for this one).
But, blessedly, there are a few excellent, wonderful things too. Two of them are ghosts and books with pretty covers.
WELCOME TO THE MEETING OF THOSE TWO THINGS.
I've been saying for ages (or like 6 months since I finally forced myself to the point of devastating epiphany and later acceptance) that I think I've finally outgrown YA.
Here's the complicating factor, baby.
This was so fun! Ghosts are the best! I love a mean teenager!
Mean girls in general are my favorite demographic. One time my friend introduced me to their roommates and was like, they're all great, except Maya. Maya is really mean. And I met all of them and was like :) okay cool and then Maya came home unexpectedly and was, true to hype, a b*tch, and I was like I LOVE YOU. CAN WE GET MARRIED? DO YOU LIKE ME? DO YOU WANT TO HOLD HANDS?
Maya might be her real name. I don't know. Oops.
Moving on.
There is kind of no explanation for the whole (view spoiler)
[The Cop Takes On The Darkness To Kill Teenagers (hide spoiler)] big reveal aspect but ok, whatever.
Generally the whole conclusion really was pretty anticlimactic. It felt like someone told the author that she'd only paid for 368 pages at, like, page 331 and she was like oh sh*t! Let's wrap things up. Here's who the bad guy is, now we defeated the spooky thing, let's all go home.
Like, if I were a nonhuman entity bent on like eating the spirits of kids known only as The Dark, personally I would be harder to destroy. But that's just me.
That's all I got.
Bottom line: Rules are made to be broken!!!
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pre-reviewGHOSTS RULE!!!
review to come / 3.5 stars
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currently-reading updatesengaging in one of my favorite hobbies (judging books by their covers)
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tbr reviewi don't remember having added this to my tbr so i'm going to assume this beautiful magical cover cast a spell on me and move on
Rating: really liked it
This is a solid debut, but I can't help but wonder if I thought this was going to be different based on the synopsis or my excitable expectations. The opening interlude is deliciously dark and entirely creepy, which sets an ominous tone for the town of Snakebite, Oregon. While definitely a slow burning story, both in the mystery behind the disappearances and also the budding romance between two of our main characters, I think the pacing works well for the type of story that this is. I had the privilege of listening to an advance audio copy, and narrator Soneela Nankani's voice is like smooth butter, simply enhancing the narrative as she speaks. She's truly a vocal artist, and I will actively seek more books that she has contributed to.
The paranormal aspect of the plot is mostly vague and mysterious for a majority of the book, probably to allow for character development amongst the side issues at hand, and I think this worked well. I was constantly trying to figure out what was going on, and wondered how Snakebite played a part in Logan and her dads' past and was also contributing to their current troubles. I adore that we get to see a healthy and established relationship between Alejo and Brandon, and how we even get a sneak peek at how they met and came together in the past. Logan is a wonderfully complex, and I found myself much more drawn to her story and portions of the book. Their little family unit completely won my heart, and I could have read an entire trilogy featuring Brandon and Alejo as a couple and as parents.
My main concerns came from the romance between Logan and Ashley. I felt like this part of the story was more "tell" than "show" which left me struggling to feel their connection. Also, I don't want to include any spoilers, but there is a scene around 70% between Ashley and Logan and the dialogue after a moment between them, followed by a major betrayal on Ashley's part, left me feeling uncomfortable. After that happened, I just couldn't trust Ashley's motives, and this did dampen the rest of the story for me. Overall, a creative plot and I see a flourishing future for the author!
Author's Note:"Some of the thematic material in The Dead and the Dark involves child death and endangerment, violence including strangulation and drowning, homophobia, and homophobic slurs. For a more detailed description of sensitive content please visit gouldbooks.com/books/tdatd.*Many thanks to the publisher for my ARC and my ALC.
Rating: really liked it
MalevolentAfter reading the cover description, I thought this would be interesting as an audiobook – and what a great call I made. Courtney Gould's debut novel,
The Dead and the Dark is a wonderful atmospheric supernatural mystery that exposes people's nature and truths of the past.
The Dark is more than the shadows, the Dark is a presence that has existed through the ages in Snakebite, Oregon.
“The Dark has been waiting—and it won't stay hidden any longer.” The stealth of the dark seeks a new home, and where it finds a place to inhabit, no one will know, but the consequences will be devastating.
Logan arrives in Snakebite with her two fathers: Alejo Ortiz and Brandon Woodley, famous TV ghost hunters. While Logan feels this is another stop on their ghost hunting adventures, it means much more to Alejo and Brandon as they grew up, met each other, and fell in love in Snakebite. It may be an isolated town, where residents are generally suspicious of newcomers. Still, there is a more profound sense of unease and an ominous evil now that the Ortiz-Woodley family are in Snakebite.
Ashley Barton’s boyfriend, Tristan, goes missing and many feel the unwelcome visitors have some part to play in this. Logan is threatened and warned out of town by a group of teenagers. Ashley receives ghostly visions of Tristan, where he’s lost and wants help to get home, but a sinister force has an evil intent that the suffering is just beginning. Ashley and Logan form an unlikely partnership as they search for Tristan and understand what is happening, especially when more teenagers go missing.
The Dead and the Dark has many hidden secrets, but fundamental is discovering if Alejo and Brandon are the precursors of evil or the town's saviours. Logan also suspects that her fathers are keeping something from her. With the most unlikely ally in Ashley, they form a very close bond as they search for answers and the dead.
I enjoyed the plot and many twists, but the ending seemed unconvincing and didn’t quite match the level of menace that permeated most of the story. Logan is a fantastic character that generates excellent empathy as she has grown up alone, with two fathers heavily involved with paranormal encounters, and specifically a very distant relationship with Brandon. She is constantly moving and living with exclusion from normal childhood friendships; she still reaches out a hand of friendship where she can.
I listened to the audiobook version, and the scenes where the atmosphere went dark, the narrator, Soneela Nankani, was excellent in conveying the menace. I would recommend this book, and while it fits in the horror genre, it feels more appropriately defined as young adult horror. I want to thank Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for providing me with a free ARC in return for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 Stars
A little confused with ending but it’s all good!
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
Rating: really liked it
oh, i loved this book's spooky vibes! bold lesbian with ghosthunting dads, twin-peaksy small town, ghostly disappearances, soft sapphic romance?? fuck yes!! and honestly, "lonely lesbian with dad issues" would have been more than enough to sell me on this book, but there's so much other good stuff!
i was reminded of burn our bodies down, which is also about a tough lesbian who is plunked down in an odd small town where she has to unravel a mystery related to her family's past.
they're both good creepy reads, but
the dead and the dark feels more fleshed out, perhaps because it's told in dual perspectives. we experience the town of snakebite from the perspective of lonely logan, who is staying in a motel while her dads do a secretive investigation. and we also see it from the perspective of heartbroken ashley, whose boyfriend tristan was the first kid to go missing in snakebite months ago.
since there is some romantic chemistry between logan and ashley, i was uncertain about how ashley would navigate both the potential new romance and her loss of tristan. (view spoiler)
[but as ashley's backstory is revealed, it all makes sense. the night he went missing, ashley had broken up with tristan because she didn't love him the way he loved her (compulsory heterosexuality, y'all). now she's plagued with guilt for doing this right before losing him. it's so sweet that his ghost is kind and understanding. i feel for their semi-platonic bond, which makes room for ashley and logan to share a different type of love. (hide spoiler)]one of my favorite things about the book is logan's relationships with her dads, reliable alejo and distant brandon. (SPOILERS) (view spoiler)
[it's heartbreaking that she feels abandoned and unloved by brandon because of the distance he puts between them. but eventually we learn that this distance comes from how much he loves her, and wants to protect her by keeping her away from the dark that is harbored inside him. i also love how it all wraps up. in the end they're still slowly working on bridging the distance of all those years. their relationship isn't magically fixed now that the dark is gone. (hide spoiler)] He understands the dark the way a stone understands a dam released over it.
also, the ghost hunting stuff is a blast. it's semi-dubious without turning silly or campy. the characters even use a machine that allows them to interpret text messages from ghosts, but the gadgets don't cheapen the story; it's still dark, sinister, and atmospheric.
and the ending!! it's beautiful in its tentative hope for a new beginning. (view spoiler)
[embarking on a fresh adventure with your girl's hand on your thigh. what could be better? (hide spoiler)] this book's balance of darkness and light is just right.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars
The Dark has been waiting for far too long, and it won't stay hidden any longer. Whoever said to not be afraid of the dark, did not know what he/she was talking about!
Something is wrong in Snakebite, Oregon. You can feel it, can't you? It is as if there is a static buzz hidden somewhere underground. You cannot see it, you cannot almost hear it, but you can
feel it deep in your soul. Plus, the weather is changing, and teens are disappearing, and some are dead. People are on edge, and they become even more suspicious and unhinged when TV’s most popular ghost hunters, Brandon and Alejo, have returned to town with their daughter, Logan.
Logan Ortiz-Woodley has never been to Snakebite before even though it is where her fathers grew up, where they met and where they fell in love. Her first impression is one of unease. The town makes it clear that they are not welcome.
Ashley Barton’s boyfriend, Tristan, is the first teenager to go missing. Ashley has been searching for him, she can feel his presence and his ghost following her. When she meets Logan, they decide to ban together, determined to uncover the towns secrets, find what is haunting the town, and in the process learn more about themselves. As the tension mounts and the darkness spreads, they soon realize not only do they have feelings for each other but that there may be light at the end of the tunnel.
This was a delight to read. I loved, loved, loved the sections where
The Dark is featured. I thought those were brilliant and were some of my favorite parts of the book. Those sections are sinister, creepy and dare I say delightful. Plus, I almost tripped wading through all the secrets in this book!
The characters are both interesting and frustrating at the same time. I wanted to knock some heads together while thinking "Why doesn't anyone just say why you are doing things? How about tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" Jeepers. Now that I am done shaking my head, back to Logan being interesting. Logan grew up lonely, always on the move. With fathers who travel to various location to film their television show, she did not have a semblance of a normal happy family life. She pulled on my heartstrings right there. She is not only lonely, but also spunky, brave and a connoisseur of weird food combinations. Logan also believes that her fathers are keeping things from her. Of course, there are things that parents do not tell their children, but this goes deeper than that.
It took me a couple of chapters to get into this book but once it grabbed my attention, it held it. It has just the right amount of spookiness and underlying unease. As the story progresses, things get darker and more tense. If paranormal and tension filled books are your thing, this may be the book for you! This book also has a strong LGBTQ representation as well.
There are a lot of themes in the book: loneliness, family, home, friendship, love, acceptance, secrets, and belonging to name a few. The themes of home and loneliness stood out for me. What makes a home? Is it a location, a building, a town, or the people in your life? You can be alone and be lonely, but you can also be surrounded by people and still feel incredible lonely as well.
Plus, if you have not looked - check out the book's cover!
Dark, tense and entertaining. Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com
Rating: really liked it
This was good, dark, and creepy. I’m a big fan of paranormal mystery/crime books and I’ve been lucky that there have been some good ones released lately. While the stories are quite different, this had a similar vibe to The River Has Teeth. The River Has Teeth was a little better fit for my personal tastes, but if you enjoyed that story I believe you will enjoy this one too.
I talk about readability a lot because I like books that are easy to get into and that can get their hooks right into you. This book was like that and I ended up reading it in one sitting. The pace was maybe a tad slower than I would have liked, but the book had a really nice build and when the pace picked-up, the story got much meatier and I didn’t want to put the book down. The author writes well and you can easy see vivid pictures of what is happening on the page, in your mind.
I’m more of a character driven reader but for this book I found I was more into the plot. I had mixed feeling about some of the characters. I thought Logan and her fathers were really well done, but I had a harder time connecting with Ashley and her family/friends. It wasn't that Ashley was unlikable, but the people around her were, so it kind of rubbed off on her. I did like when she got more into the paranormal aspects as it made her character more interesting for me, but it was still a mix.
It’s funny because I did find some things over the top and had to suspend disbelief a bit, but it was not the paranormal parts. It was the people and how they behaved and what they got away with, which was a bit much. The whole thing with the Paris kid, I mean come on that scene was a little too much for me. And I could not help but wonder how the whole town would not get put on the FBI’s watch list after that ending.
While there were some out there parts, I did like the main plot quite a bit. The mystery had some nice twists and while I had some ideas about one part, I was also surprised so I always like that. A lot of my friends have commented that this was a very scary story but I didn’t get that. There is violence and death and I would call this dark and creepy, but it was not scary for me. I guess your mileage may vary.
There was a light sapphic romance. It is slow burn and almost enemies to lovers. Maybe Romeo and Juliet-ish is the better way to explain it. It started off rocky to me and I wasn’t feeling it. Luckily, as the book went on I started to believe in the connection and like them as a couple. I do wish Gould would have spent more time developing Ashley’s feelings. We needed to see the change and how it happened but we really don’t. In the end it was a cute but light romance.
I would recommend this to YA paranormal crime/mystery fans. This is well written and an interesting read. To have a debut this strong makes me excited to read Gould again. If you are looking for dark and creepy, this book may just be for you.
A copy was given to me for a review.
Rating: really liked it
The Dead and the Dark is spine-chilling scary with some really intriguing twists and turns, I definitely do not recommend reading it at night. I am not into paranormal mystery books and I only picked up this book because of the sapphic aspect and I am so glad I did because it ended up being of the best books I’ve read in quite some time. It was totally addicting and so gripping, I slept at 3 in the morning.
As the main reason I was interested in this book was the sapphic romance so it was disappointing in the beginning that I didn't feel sparks between the couple and thought it was gonna be mediocre. But then like everything else in Dead and the Dark, it surprised me greatly and became one of the best things about the book. It turned into a chemistry filled slowburn that I couldn't get enough of.
If the sapphic and the top notch horror-mystery element isn't enough then read it for the father-daughter relationship. It was my most favourite thing in the book (and reminded me of Walter-Peter from Fringe) It didn't seem like much in the beginning but by the end it had me sobbing.
I did have a few little issue like (view spoiler)
[If someone's drowning the girl you love right in front of you, would you just go and call the police, instead of trying to stop him? How could she not realize it'd be too late? ..And in the end where was John's punishment? Instead we got Ashley sympathizing with with that homophobic garbage can. (hide spoiler)]Overall, I pretty much loved everything in this book the eerie atmosphere, the relationships and the horror-mystery and now I am even more excited to read Echo Sunset by Courtney Gould.
Copy provided by the publisher, Bold Strokes Books, via NetGalley.
Rating: really liked it
Snakebite Oregon, even the sound of the name sounds lonely and desolate. That's what seventeen year old Logan Ortiz-Woodley thinks and feels as she packs up with her dad to go ghost hunting on the road again.. She just wishes she had a real place to call home. Her dads are the famous ghost hunter team Alejo Ortiz and Brandon Woodley from a very popular tv show and now they are going back to the hometown where they both were originally from to investigate the darkness and mystery that has always surrounded Snakebite. Things have gotten worse in their hometown because a teenage boy has suddenly disappeared and the people from Snakebite think Brandon has something to do with the missing boy as the darkness continues to seep more quickly into the heart of the little town. This family is not welcome in Snakebite and most of the people will do everything they can to push them away as the darkness grows stronger and and more teenagers are targeted by an evil that only Brandon and Alejo see and understand but this team may not have the ability to stop this evil unless one of them dies.
This was a creepy, fun and intriguing story about ghost hunting yet so much more. Logan is a beautiful young girl trying to find herself and wanting to have a stable and loving relationship with her dads but she yearns for more. There is a lot of mystery surrounding Brandon and also his aloofness with his daughter. The darkness in the town is very spooky and unsettling at times. The author did a great job of keeping the mystery going until the very end which continually had me puzzled and wondering how the story would play out. At times the story felt a little disjointed with timelines and some of the plot but otherwise it didn't change the enjoyment or the entertainment value of the book. This was a very strong debut for Courtney Gould and I will definitely look forward to read more of her books.
I want to thank the publisher "St. Martin's Press" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this entertaining story and any thoughts and opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!
I have given this book a rating of 3 1/2 SPOOKY 🌟🌟🌟🌠 Stars!
Publication Date: August 3, 2021
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Author: Courtney Gould
Rating: really liked it
Admittedly, it does not take much to hype me up about a book. A ringing endorsement from a beloved author or the shared excitement of a friend is usually enough to have me bouncing around in anticipation. So yes, my elation as I went into
The Dead and the Dark probably didn’t match the overall tone of the novel, but it didn’t take long to adjust to the truly creepy, unsettling town that was Snakebite, Oregon.
Somewhere between a ghost story and a murder mystery, Courtney Gould’s debut novel follows two young women—Logan, who just moved into town with her dads, and Ashley, who’s family is a staple of Snakebite and owns most of the local property. Though starting out on adversarial terms, the two eventually forge a sort of alliance once their peers begin disappearing, which blossoms into a something-more-than-friendship later on. Ashley is still mourning the loss of her boyfriend, Tristan, who disappeared only a week after one of Logan’s fathers, Brandon, showed up in Snakebite. Fighting town prejudices as well as an unnamed force that casts a sinister shadow over the entire community, Ashley and Logan are racing against the clock to find the culprit and finally grant their friends and family peace.
What I liked most about this story was probably also one of the things holding it back. There’s a supernatural element to this book, with vaguely defined ‘Dark’ powers that are genuinely scary to follow along with. Unfortunately I think that with all that build-up, the ending felt a little flimsy, like the author didn’t know how to get down from the height she climbed up to. It wrapped up in a way even less defined, which I think left the ending more open-ended than she intended.
It seems like a lot of the problems that Logan and her family faced could have been resolved earlier on if her fathers literally told her, well,
anything. This isn’t my favorite way that authors withhold information, by having the characters be allergic to communication, but though annoying it wasn’t a dealbreaker for me. Some of the twists completely caught me off guard, while others were more predictable, but throughout my time reading I have to say I was totally rapt.
At the end of the day, this is a solid scary, paranormal mystery that would make a great binge. Some of the character interactions were a little convenient to the story, but this was always going to be a book where one has to suspend disbelief for the extent of it. Ashley and Logan are interesting characters, though their romance was a little half-baked for me, but I did like them individually. Will
The Dead and the Dark hold up under sharp analysis? Probably not, but as far as entertainment goes, I can recommend this one.
*Thank you Chelsea for sharing your ARC with me! 💙**For more book talk & reviews, follow me on Instagram at @elle_mentbooks!
Rating: really liked it
alternative title: gay dads and their gay daughter and her girlfriend have a very bad time with the supernatural in a small MAGA town
