Review: THE WICKED DEEP
/26 Comments/by SuzannePublished by Simon Pulse on March 6th 2018
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 320
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
MY REVIEW:
I’ve always been drawn to books that feature witches, so as soon as I saw its alluring synopsis promising “Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic meets the Salem Witch trials,” Shea Ernshaw’s debut novel, The Wicked Deep, quickly became one of my most anticipated reads of 2018. So, did it live up to expectations? Well, yes and no. The Wicked Deep is an atmospheric and engaging read — I read it easily in about a day. That said, however, it was also the kind of read that had me yelling at the characters as I was reading because I just couldn’t believe some of the things I was reading. I’ll try to elaborate on that without giving away any major spoilers…
Set in the cursed town of Sparrow, Oregon, The Wicked Deep is a story of revenge. Two centuries ago, beautiful sisters Marguerite, Aurora, and Hazel Swan moved to Sparrow. They were disliked immediately because of the way the townsmen fawned all over them and eventually they were accused of being witches and drowned in the town’s harbor. Every summer since the drowning, on the anniversary of their deaths, the spirits of the three sisters wait for teenage girls to enter the water and then they inhabit their bodies until the summer solstice. Their goal? Revenge. Like sirens, the sisters use the bodies they’ve stolen to then lure unsuspecting teenage boys into the harbor where they drown them. No one ever knows whose bodies have been taken over and once the summer solstice comes, the spirits go back to the bottom of the sea and those who were inhabited have no recollection of what has happened. Everyone in Sparrow seems to just accept that this is their fate and they have even gone so far as to morbidly exploit the curse, even referring to it as “Swan Season.” The curse has made Sparrow quite the tourist attraction and people come from miles around to see if what they have heard is true. The town throws ‘Swan’ parties and then just passively waits for the ritual to play out each year, with no hope of ever stopping it.
Things change this year, however. A young man named Bo arrives in town on the same night the Swan sisters are set to return. Bo meets 17-year-old Penny Talbot, a local who like most others, has just accepted this as her way of life. Penny fills him in on the curse and warns him that as a teen boy, he’s likely to be a potential target. The two of them start to bond and, instead of passively riding out the ritual like she does every other year, Penny becomes determined to keep Bo from falling victim to the sisters. While Penny is busy trying to keep Bo safe, seeds of discord are being sown in the town and some of the boys decide it’s time to end this curse once and for all. Someone comes up with the idea that perhaps if they can figure out which girls are inhabited by the spirits, they can kill those girls and thus prevent the spirits from returning to the sea, thus breaking the curse. This leads to a modern day witch hunt with the girls now in just as much danger as the boys.
Can the townspeople stop the curse? Can they even justify taking the lives of three innocent girls to possibly stop the curse? Can Penny protect Bo from the curse? Why did Bo conveniently show up in town that night anyway? So many questions….
I absolutely loved the atmosphere that Ernshaw creates in her novel. It’s an enchanting recipe of quaint small town quirkiness combined with the haunting and creepy vibe that this two-hundred year old curse casts over everything. Small details like the sisters using song to lure teen girls into the water to steal their bodies just added to the overall sensory experience of reading. If I was rating on atmosphere only, this would be five stars for sure.
The legend of the Swan sisters was fascinating as well. I really liked how Ernshaw allowed more and more details about their story to unfold as we’re watching the curse play out in real time. The Swan sisters were actually interesting enough that I would have loved an entire book devoted just to them, but Ernshaw does a nice job of seamlessly weaving together the past and the present to show us how the curse began and why the sisters are so bent on seeking revenge against the people of Sparrow.
Out of all the characters, Bo was probably the character who intrigued me the most. He was so mysterious and it felt like he was hiding something when he first arrived, especially the way he claimed to not be a tourist yet conveniently showed up on the first night of “Swan Season.” I felt like I was watching him most closely while I was reading, trying to figure out if he had ulterior motives for arriving in Sparrow when he did.
Okay, so let me reiterate that I enjoyed reading The Wicked Deep. As I’ve already mentioned, I read it in a day and literally could not put it down until I knew how it was going to end. That said, there were some things about the story itself that just drove me crazy and had me yelling at the characters (a lot!) while I was reading…
- I could not understand, for the life of me, how an entire town of people could continue living in a place where they know the same thing is going to happen every year. You know young men are going to drown and yet even if you are the parent of said young men, you’re cool with staying in this town? I couldn’t get past this because I just can’t fathom staying in a place like this. It should be a deserted ghost town.
- Speaking of being a tourist haven – Even if you have accepted your fate as some kind of “collective guilt,” why would you exploit this tragedy by bringing more people to your town? Are they hoping to lure in other families so that maybe non-local kids drown instead of their own?
- The teenagers’ cavalier attitude toward the entire curse. Again, you know as a teen girl in a small town, you have a very high chance of being one of the three who are “chosen” by the sisters and that if chosen, they, using your body, will murder young men. And you know as a teenage boy, that you stand a pretty good chance of being lured out to a watery grave. So why the heck do these idiots have a huge party down on the beach the first night of “Swan Season” every year and dare each other to drunkenly wade out into the water to see what happens?
Aside from not understanding why the people of Sparrow do what they do, I also guessed what was supposed to be a huge plot twist very early on, so that was a little disappointing. I will say it’s a great twist though, a total game changer, so if you don’t guess it early on, it will blow your mind when you get there.
One other area where I felt things were a bit lacking was in the area of character development. You’ll notice that aside from Bo, I didn’t really mention any other characters and that’s because I didn’t really feel all that invested in any of them. It felt like they were just there to advance the plot regarding the curse. Penny probably had the most development out of any of them but I still didn’t really feel any connection to her. Since I’m one who likes to connect with the characters, I’m reading about, this was a little disappointing.
While in many ways The Wicked Deep lived up to expectations – it’s one of the most atmospheric books I’ve read in a while and I definitely enjoyed the unique premise of the cursed town and the three sisters’ quest for revenge, the book fell a bit flat for me in other ways just because I couldn’t get past the unrealistic behavior of the people in the town and didn’t feel much of a connection to the characters. I still wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a haunting and creepy witch-themed read.
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic meets the Salem Witch trials in this haunting story about three sisters on a quest for revenge—and how love may be the only thing powerful enough to stop them.
Welcome to the cursed town of Sparrow…
Where, two centuries ago, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town.
Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under.
Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters’ return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into.
Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain-soaked streets. The townspeople turn against one another. Penny and Bo suspect each other of hiding secrets. And death comes swiftly to those who cannot resist the call of the sisters.
But only Penny sees what others cannot. And she will be forced to choose: save Bo, or save herself.
About Shea Ernshaw
Shea Ernshaw is an Oregon native and YA author. She often writes late, late, late into the night, enjoys dark woods, scary stories and moonlight on lakes. She drinks loads of tea and believes sunrises are where unicorns hide.
She lives with her two cats, a dog, a husband, and a stack of books beside her bed she still needs to read.
Her debut THE WICKED DEEP will be published by Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse in 2018.
Discussion Post: Books Guaranteed to Pull Me Out of a Reading Slump
/32 Comments/by Suzanne
It has happened to us all at some point. One minute you’re on a roll, reading one incredible book after another, and then boom, it hits…the dreaded reading slump. As soon as the slump hits, you try book after book from your TBR pile, but nothing seems to satisfy and instead of being the wonderful hobby that you love so much, reading suddenly becomes a chore.
I’ve been fairly lucky on this front and (knock on wood!) have only fallen into a reading slump a few times in my life so far and most of those were in college when I was required to read a lot of books for my English major that didn’t necessarily appeal to me. But man, when those slumps do hit, they just make me so depressed. Seriously, is there anything worse for a book lover than to suddenly not enjoy reading anymore?
Usually switching to a different genre for a while is enough to help me bust through my slumps, which is how I’ve developed such eclectic tastes in books over the years, but every once in a while, changing genres is not enough. Sometimes I just have to set aside my entire TBR pile and go back and revisit some cherished old favorites that always remind me why I fell in love with reading in the first place and give me the kick in the pants I need to get back on track with my reading.
So what are my go-to slump busting reads?
CHILDHOOD FAVORITES
There’s nothing like taking a moment to go back and rediscover those favorite characters and settings from my childhood. I’m a huge fan of doing this, especially now that my son is old enough to read my childhood favorites. I’ve been trying to instill a love of reading in him so it has been wonderful for us to read and enjoy my childhood favorites together. He gets to discover these wonderful characters for the first time and I get to take a stroll down memory lane.
BOOKS THAT RESONATE
These are books that no matter how many years have passed since I first read them, I still think about them. They taught me lessons that have stuck with me to this day and they are books that are guaranteed to make me think. These are books that I remain passionate about no matter how many times I re-read them.
BOOKS THAT MAKE ME CRY
I don’t know about other readers, but sometimes I think my reading slumps are caused by other things that are going on in my life at the time. It’s not necessarily the books I’m reading, it’s just me. Whether it’s work stress, family drama, or whatever, just something gets all bottled up inside and when that happens, I feel like I need an emotional release and so I will reach for a book that I know will give me that good cry.
BOOKS THAT MAKE ME LAUGH
On a similar note, maybe a good cry isn’t what I need. Maybe it’s a good laugh. I don’t read a lot of funny books so this can sometimes be a challenge, but there are a few silly books out there that I love to pull out when I need some laughs. I know Pride and Prejudice is technically more of a romance than anything else, but the banter between Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, not to mention the silly antics of Mrs. Bennett, is always good for a laugh. And I’ve all but abandoned the Stephanie Plum series for now, as I mentioned in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday post, but let me tell you, if I hit another major reading slump, I wouldn’t hesitate to grab a book or two from that series. If the misadventures of Grandma Mazur and Lula don’t bust a reading slump, nothing will, lol.
HARRY POTTER
Yes, this series is in a category all by itself. I didn’t read it until I was an adult so I can’t consider it a childhood favorite. But in a lot of ways, it covers all of the other topics above and then some. There’s just something about picking up one of these books that feels like coming home. Whenever I read them, I not only fall in love with the characters and the story all over again, but I also think about how many other readers this series has captivated over the years. This is the series that made so many people fall in love with reading, and I get caught up in that spell and all is right with the world again (at least as far as my love of reading anyway, lol).
So, what about you? What kind of books do you turn to when you’re trying to pull yourself out of a reading slump?
Can’t Wait Wednesday – Spotlight on THE LADY’S GUIDE TO PETTICOATS AND PIRACY
/38 Comments/by Suzanne
“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, which encourages fellow bloggers to spotlight upcoming releases that we’re excited about. It is a meme that I have loved participating in for over a year now, but as Jill is no longer actively posting, from now on I’ll just be linking to Can’t Wait Wednesday, hosted by Tressa, which is a spinoff of the original WoW meme.
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My selection for this week is THE LADY’S GUIDE TO PETTICOATS AND PIRACY by Mackenzi Lee. One of my absolute favorite reads of 2017 was The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. It was laugh-out-loud hilarious and was brimming with lovable characters. Felicity Montague, with her razor sharp wit and her unwavering desire to become a doctor during a time where that was just unheard of, quickly became one of my favorites. I’m over the moon to know that she’s now going to have her own book in this series and can’t wait to get my hands on a copy. I predict this will be one of my favorite 2018 reads!
THE LADY’S GUIDE TO PETTICOATS AND PIRACY by Mackenzi Lee
Publication Date: October 2, 2018
From Goodreads:
Felicity Montague is through with pretending she prefers society parties to books about bone setting—or that she’s not smarter than most people she knows, or that she cares about anything more than her dream of becoming a doctor.
A year after an accidentally whirlwind tour of Europe, which she spent evading highwaymen and pirates with her brother Monty, Felicity has returned to England with two goals in mind—avoid the marriage proposal of Callum Doyle, a lovestruck suitor from Edinburgh; and enroll in medical school. However, her intellect and passion will never be enough in the eyes of the administrators, who see men as the sole guardians of science.
But then a small window of hope opens. Doctor Alexander Platt, an eccentric physician that Felicity idolizes, is looking for research assistants, and Felicity is sure that someone as forward thinking as her hero would be willing to take her on. However, Platt is in Germany, preparing to wed Felicity’s estranged childhood friend Johanna. Not only is Felicity reluctant to opening old wounds, she also has no money to make the trip.
Luckily, a mysterious young woman is willing to pay Felicity’s way, so long as she’s allowed to travel with Felicity disguised as her maid. In spite of her suspicions, Felicity agrees, but once the girl’s true motives are revealed, Felicity becomes part of a perilous quest that will lead her from the German countryside to the promenades of Zurich to secrets lurking beneath the Atlantic.
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I’d love to hear what upcoming book releases you’re waiting on this Wednesday? Leave me your link in the comments below and I’ll stop by and check out your CWW selection for this week. 🙂