To Break a Covenant

by Alison Ames

Debut voice Alison Ames delivers with a chilling, feminist thriller, perfect for fans of Wilder Girls and Sawkill Girls .

Moon Basin has been haunted for as long as anyone can remember. It started when an explosion in the mine killed sixteen people. The disaster made it impossible to live in town, with underground fires spewing ash into the sky. But life in New Basin is just as fraught. The ex-mining town relies on its haunted reputation to bring in tourists, but there’s more truth to the rumors than most are willing to admit, and the mine still has a hold on everyone who lives there.

Clem and Nina form a perfect loop―best friends forever, and perhaps something more. Their circle opens up for a strange girl named Lisey with a knack for training crows, and Piper, whose father is fascinated with the mine in a way that’s anything but ordinary. The people of New Basin start experiencing strange phenomena―sleepwalking, night terrors, voices that only they can hear. And no matter how many vans of ghost hunters roll through, nobody can get to the bottom of what’s really going on. Which is why the girls decide to enter the mine themselves.

Genres: Horror, Young Adult, Lesbian, LGBT, Mystery, Queer, Thriller

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 21, 2021

About the author

Alison Ames is the author of horror novels for adults and teens. To Break a Covenant, her first novel, was nominated for a Colorado Book Award. Her second novel It Looks Like Us is a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection pick. You can find more information and other books on her website.

Reviews

[emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS IS WHAT READING IS ALL ABOUT.

Picking up a random book you haven't heard much about and just. FALLING IN LOVE WITH IT.

https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co...

Have decided to use the one moment of earnestness I'm allotted per year on this to say: I read for moments like this! Yes, I'm critical, yes, my most common rating is a 3 by a country mile, yes, I bring suffering to the timelines of us all:

But I'm willing to bet that when I want to give a five star - when a book is PERFECT and makes me FEEL and I love the CHARACTERS and it SURPRISES me...

Well, I bet my five stars feel better than your five stars.

This is like if Emily Henry wrote young adult paranormal horror, which is the greatest compliment I can give...any young adult paranormal horror.

It's funny, the banter is A+, the friendships are fantastic, there's some sweet little sapphic friends to lovers action, and it is so goddamn spooky I could perish.

What a dream.

Bottom line: I'm going to live forever!!!!!!!!

---------------
pre-review

what the hell? what the actual living screaming f*ck?

where did this come from??

review to come / FIVE STARS??????

---------------
tbr review

sapphic hauntings sapphic hauntings sapphic hauntings

(thank you to the publisher for the ARC)

---------------

reading all books with LGBTQ+ rep for pride this month!

book 1: the gravity of us
book 2: the great american whatever
book 3: wild beauty
book 4: the affair of the mysterious letter
book 5: how we fight for our lives
book 6: blue lily, lily blue
book 7: the times i knew i was gay
book 8: conventionally yours
book 9: the hollow inside
book 10: nimona
book 11: dark and deepest red
book 12: the house in the cerulean sea
book 13: the raven king
book 14: violet ghosts
book 15: as far as you'll take me
book 16: bad feminist
book 17: a song for a new day
book 18: one last stop
book 19: to break a covenant

[Lex Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.50 Stars. Now this is a horror book! I’m taking another quick ARC break, to try to get in as many Halloween books as I can, and I was ready for something scary. YA horror is pretty popular right now, which I love, but I’ve found a lot of the books to be more creepy and gross as oppose to creepy and scary, which is the combo I’ve been looking for. Well let’s just say that I made a big mistake of starting this book at 9pm because this was finally the scary horror book I’ve been waiting for.

This is a story about a group of three girlfriends that are spending their summer vacation together. The live in one of the most haunted towns on earth, that regularly sees ghost hunting teams putting microphones in their faces. When a new girl comes to town, they instantly friend her but things take a sharp turn when the find out what her father does for a living. He was sent there to decide what should happen to the mine, the mine that most people blame for all the town’s paranormal activity and which has been sitting vacant since an explosion that killed many. While his studying of the mine seems to make it more powerful, the girls soon realize that to save themselves and maybe even the whole town, they must expose the mine’s secrets once and for all.

This is Ames debut and I was pretty floored by that. Her writing is excellent and it completely sucks you into this book. Not only was I totally creeped out, I also knew I could not stop reading this book until I was finished. Like the mine that has its hooks in the town, this book had its hooks in me and there was no way I was not going to keep turning every page.

I’ve been reading as much YA horror -especially if it has sapphic characters- that I can get my hands on the past few years, but this was the first time I felt actually scared while reading. This reminded me of watching a scary movie where you want to hide your eyes behind the blanket just until the next scene. The setting of the mine was this terrifying character in itself. It was so well written about how it smelled and the heat and how it made the characters feel that I kept feeling wicked claustrophobic just sitting on my couch. This book definitely messed with my head, but in the best sort of horror entertainment way.

The characters were really great. The only one I didn’t connect with as much was the girl who moved into the book later. I liked her, but I felt more connected with the other three since they had an older bond. This book is in first person, so you have the biggest connection to Clem, but the other two friends had very unique voices so I didn’t miss not being in their POV. There was a tiny, baby sapphic romance starting. Clem has feels for one of her friends and you see something very slowly developing. It was just enough to be cute and to give such a suffocating book at times, a breath of fresh air.

TLDR: An excellent debut and a well done YA horror book. I have not felt this scared and creeped out reading a horror book in a few years. There is a tiny sapphic romance that is cute but it’s not a big part of the story. Characters are great and the mine is one of the spookiest characters I’ve read in a while. This book really delivered on its promises and it makes me excited to think of the kind of impressive book career that Ames has in front of her. Read this book with the lights on!

[marta the book slayer · Rating 2 out of 5]

My biggest pet peeve is when authors write “we did this but don’t know why”. If you’re too lazy to explain something why should I care about reading it? This book had a lot of these moments, especially at pivotal times.

You have a mine that is making people crazy and these girls continue going to it multiple times without sensible reasoning. I wish I highlighted this but there was one point when they are driving out of the state to get away from this mine and suddenly "we just turned to drive to the mine, none of us knowing why but we all knew we had to go there one last time". No we all didn't know that, there is no reason for you to do that. You were all clearly sane enough to get in the car and talked about not going there and suddenly you all decide to go. Stupid, sloppy and lazy writing.

The title of this novel makes no sense. 80% of this novel is focused on this mine on how crazy it is making the residents who physically cannot leave. We get two pages where these four teenage girls "just know" they have to share blood and become a covenant. Do you see what I mean about this being lazy? It happens out of nowhere - it really didn't need to be a plot point. Then it comes up one other time later on in the novel, again not making any sense just adding more to the plot.

That ending - talk about poorly written. **spoilers ahead but i don't really care about this novel so read at ur own risk** There is strong build-up and slow pace throughout the whole novel and towards the end the girls enter the mine. My internal thoughts: oh my god there is going to be a sequel! i can't wait to read about the fucked up shit that happens in this mine

Cut. Fade to black. Let's skip a huge chunk of time of what happens there because why would we care about what goes on in this fucked up mine we have been reading about for 300 pages?!?!

Hope you enjoy the final two pages summarizing the girls exiting the mine. The end. :)

read as part of spooky season haunted tales that hopefully keep me up till the witching hour
🕸 picture of dorian gray
🕸 we have always lived in the castle
🕸 rules for vanishing
🕸 dracula
🕸 dangers of smoking in bed
🕸 fever dream
🕸 dr.jekyll and mr.hyde
🕸 the houseguest and other stories
🕸 frankenstein in baghdad
🕸 the woman in black
🕸 carmilla
🕸 the collector
🕸 the only good indians
🕸 the black spider
🕸 to break a covenant

[charlotte, · Rating 5 out of 5]

i need a moment to process

read my review on reads rainbow

Rep: lesbian mc, bi li

CWs: animal death, death of a parent, gore

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book teetered between a 3 and 4 rating, but that ending dropped it all the way down to a 2. Such a disappointing and unfulfilling ending. The plot was pretty decent throughout the book, and I enjoyed the world building, itself. Majority of the characters felt flat and not well fleshed out, and some of the plot was a little too unbelievable, though.

More detailed issues I had with the book, below. Warning: Contains Spoilers


Spoilers below:

Plot -
* did I miss it or??? WHAT WAS THE ORIGIN OF THE "EVIL MINE"????
* I'm not sure about anyone else, but I would've 100% called Piper's mom to file the missing police report for Carlisle
* if that didn't work, I'd start contacting media and any other outlet I could (I'm aware this is supposed to take place in the early 2000's, but news channels and SAR still exist)
* if the mine doesn't want "out of towners" Carlisle and Piper should've been safe. They weren't from there and were only there to assess the mine. They would've left after it was done.
* why didn't they just go to the clearing. They knew the mine left their brain there??? They could've camped out for a while in that clearing. The "road trip" was pointless.


Characters -
* I absolutely hate that we only got to see the romantic relationship between Clem and Nina at the last few chapters. If that's all there was going to be, I would've been fine with no love interest going on at all. Also. It seemed to come out of nowhere. Just because they are best friends who also like girls, doesn't mean they'd fall for each other???
* I literally could not tell you what any of the characters looked like, except for "henna red hair" for Nina, and "basically albino" for Lisey.

Miscellaneous -
* while yes, I liked the world building, a story can't base all of it's substance on that alone. Everything else in the book felt flat
* The horror/nightmare/mine sequences were thrilling, they were way too long and not really adding anything to plot. Nothing came back into play except the crows, and the tooth. Which, we never find out where it's from???
* why even have the "unreleased footage" chapters? We don't even know when they're taking place, so many names to keep track of, and majority of the information we learn in those chapters, is just repeated in a normal chapter. Pointless.

I feel like a lot more pissed me off with this book, but the way it was written distracted from the bad stuff, and I'm still so pissed about the ending that I can't think of anything else. I have never written a review this long or broken down, for any other book. That's how much the ending pissed me off. Obviously their plan worked (or did it ??), and I'm assuming the girls died, but wtf.

[bie · Rating 4 out of 5]

give me a second to collect my jaw from the floor

trigger warnings: animal death, child abandonment, gore, parental death, mention of suicide/attempt (drowning, cutting).

[may ➹ · Rating 4 out of 5]

every once in a while I need a weird little book for my sanity

3.5 stars probably? maybe? short rtc

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you so much to Page Street for providing an ARC copy! All thoughts and opinions are still my own.

When I saw this book compared to Wilder Girls and Sawkill Girls I knew I needed to add it to my TBR immediately. And this spooky story fit that description perfectly! I absolutely love the atmospheric setting and creepy small town vibes of this!

I loved small town, paranormal stories and this one was done fantastically. I loved that there was a multi-media aspect to it by having episode footage interspersed between chapters. It was a really fun and effective way to develop the history of the town.

But like in the 2 books this is compared to, this really shines in the female friendship. These girls are ride or die friends and I loved following them. They're all so unique and different from one another and I loved that they all had their own voice.

Without going into spoilers, this ending won't be for everyone. But I thought it was absolutely genius. Ugh I just really loved how this all came together and it's definitely a book that will stick with me.

If you love ghost hunters, haunted towns, and fierce female friendships - get this one on your TBR immediately! It's the perfect edition to a spooky TBR this fall. And I absolutely cannot wait to see what Alison Ames writes next. This was a wonderful debut and I'll definitely be picking up more from them in the future!

[Leanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Reading this on a rainy night, alone in my room, was a mistake. I’m terrified, but it’s worth it, because this was so good!

The plot revolves around around an ex-mining town that has long been rumoured to be haunted. We follow Clem, Nina, Lisey, and Piper — four close friends — as they investigate the mystery behind why the townspeople start behaving strangely. Their quest leads them to the town’s mine, the site of an old mining disaster.


The best horror books aren’t the ones that have lots of dramatic violence and gore. Rather, they're the ones that slowly get under your skin and leave you with a distinctly unsettled feeling. And that’s exactly what this book did. I mean firstly, the mine felt like it was its own character. The darkness, its dark history, the mystery of the people who disappeared within it, the strange noises in it — it all felt incredibly real, and I really did feel like I was in the mine with the girls.

The atmosphere of the book was definitely the highlight; much like the characters, I kept feeling like something was wrong, but it was hard to pinpoint. It’s not often that the atmosphere and writing of a book matches perfectly with the plot, but that was 100% achieved here. For example, a key point throughout the story is that whatever is haunting the town refuses to let the girls leave, even when they try. That idea that they were physically tied to the town and whatever lay within, completely unable to escape it… I loved it.

The friendships/relationships in this were also great! Clem, Nina, Lisey, and Piper had distinct personalities and they all brought something unique to their friendship group. I loved their dynamics. And there’s a cute sapphic friends to lovers subplot.

Overall, this is an excellent YA horror novel that is delightfully creepy. It’s also well balanced with some fantastic characters and friendships. Definitely recommended!

[Althea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been in a real sapphic horror kick and have been dying to pick this one up ever since it was first announced. I love a good spooky, mysterious town and this ticked so many boxes for me! To Break a Covenant follows Clem and her best friends Nina and Lisey as a new girl, Piper, comes to town. Piper’s dad has been hired to ensure that the town’s old mine shaft is still stable and won’t collapse suddenly, but the only problem is that the mine has been causing the townspeople to have strange nightmares and hear strange voices. When Piper’s dad starts acting strangely the girls must take things into their own hands and enter the mine themselves.

I absolutely adore atmospheric writing and I think Alison Ames managed to construct one of the most atmospheric books I’ve ever read. The book is set in Moon Basin in the height of summer – imagine sweltering heat and hazy horizons, coyotes howling and humid mineshafts – and the author managed to capture the essence of the town perfectly. I could easily imagine myself there alongside Clem, practically smell the smoke from the underground fires and feel the heat wash over me, and it made for a particularly unnerving read. I am a frequent complainer of spooky things always being set in some dark town with really dim lighting (I have poor eyesight, okay, let me have something!), but I always find horror novels and shows that much scarier when they focus on a town that is terrifying even in the middle of the day, so I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

One of the absolute highlights of this book is the main characters, and I’m far from being the only person to love this! Clem, Nina, Lisey and Piper would do absolutely anything for each other – even dying for each other – and their strong, unbreakable bond was, for lack of a better word, just so good to read. Seeing their love and immediate acceptance for each other and all their quirks, as well as the lengths they would go for one another was just so heart-warming and I adored their bond. There’s a sapphic romance in this book which was just so wonderful – and featured some of my absolute favourite tropes (hello friends-to-lovers and we-might-not-make-it-through-this-so-I-have-to-kiss-you-Right-Now!). It didn’t go in the direction I thought it might from the beginning of the book but I adored it nonetheless.

I can’t go too much into the plot for obvious reasons but aside from the amazing atmosphere, this book was just unbelievably creepy. I loved how we got snippets throughout of transcriptions from recordings that paranormal investigator shows had done throughout the past and I think it really added to the sense of foreboding as the mine took over. There is some mild gore at times in the book so be aware of that, but I think it was done really well, as someone who is extremely squeamish.

My one negative remark about the book is the ending. It’s an open ending which I generally don’t like, though I do think that it worked really well for this book and can’t see it ending any other way. However, I don’t think we got enough explanations – what was that weird clearing where everything was okay all about, what actually happened to the miners, what was going on in the mines in the first place and what was the root of the paranormal activity, Lisey?????? Like I said, I think the overall ending to the story was perfect, but as I got to the 95% mark and there was still so much unresolved, I was starting to have my doubts, and I wish it had been a tad bit longer so that everything else could have got wrapped up because it felt like the author had come up with this wonderful idea of a haunted mine but didn’t really know how to explain it and just went here’s an ambiguous ending, please work it out on your own. But we couldn’t work it out on our own because we weren’t supplied with enough information!

Regardless, I would highly, highly recommend this book for the upcoming spooky season, and if you’re trying to hold onto that summer weather then this book will be perfect for you. I absolutely adored the female friendships in this book and the unsettling nature of the book was absolutely fantastic, and I can’t wait to read what Alison Ames releases next!

Thanks to TBR & Beyond Tours, Page Street Publishing, and Netgalley for an eARC in return for an honest review!

Want more sapphic books? You can find me here: Book Blog | Twitter | Instagram

[Ava · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll actually provide a longer review:

So the only thing I really liked here was the premise. A small town haunted by an explosion in a mine that happened in the 60's and is still left largely unexplained. The fire in the mine still burning underground. The town becoming uninhabitable, but also people refusing to move away, eventually creating a new settlement just outside the old one. Sounds spooky and fascinating, but I kept thinking that I've heard something like this before, so I googled and it turns out I was right! A very similar thing actually happened in the USA in a town called Centralia (I encourage you to read about it!). You have to admit it sounds similar:
- A somewhat unexplained fire in the mine happening in the 60's - check
- Town located in Pennsylvania or somewhere in that area - check
- An underground fire that doesn't stop burning for years and years - check
- Nearby area suffering consequences (although the ones irl are arguably more grand-scale, like carbon monoxide poisoning and sinkholes appearing out of nowhere) - check
- Some people refusing to move - check.

With that in mind, can I really still credit the book for a fascinating idea? I'll admit what the author attempts is promising - taking this event and putting a much creepier, darker, paranormal spin on it (because more happens in this book - people become obsessed and changed by the mine, it sorta controls their minds), but then again, what's the point without getting any answers?

Without spoiling too much I'll say that: the characters enter the mine a couple of times. Those moments are genuinely scary and well-written, but not much comes out of them, everything that happens just poses more questions. Are they hallucinating? What is it that's out to get them? What's the deal with the coyotes? What is it that is capable of causing them physical harm? What is the origin of the evil that awaits in the mine? What is the mystery behind the original explosion? Why do the authorities prohibit anyone from entering the mine, but at the same time don't make any effort to make it inaccessible? The questions start piling up until you're so anxious for the book to just get on with it so you can find out, start piecing it together, understanding. But that moment never comes. Some of those problems are even directly suggested in the book, but after one finishes it, it becomes clear that it was nothing more than a bait.

I also don't understand the purpose of including the mixed-media interludes - excerpts from unused footage from ghost hunting programs, interviews etc. First of all, information included in those excerpts is almost always repeated afterwards in regular chapters. Second of all, they feel extremely repetitive.

Bottom line is that I will never understand why authors choose to entice the readers with an entertaining premise for a spooky mystery and then just completely refuse to come up with any explanation. I get it, sometimes the fun is in the unknown, but to not even include any real conclusion is just bizarre.
___________

Damn this is so disappointing!!!

Such an intriguing setup, spooky atmosphere, so many posed questions and FOR WHAT? Literally zero payoff. Nothing is solved. Nothing is explained. There is a culminative event and the book just fuckin ends right in the middle of it! That, plus there are plotholes. Idk man, I feel so let down.

[Heather M · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love a gothic bitch house vibe so i had a feeling i was gonna love: gothic bitch mine~

the author understands how to create a genuinely tense and spooky atmosphere, as well as how to have fun with YA voice and it strikes a nice balance. no spoilers but she also understands breaking hearts. I got really invested in this little crew, all in all a great debut novel that makes me want to read whatever she decides to write next! extra points for the Sadie-esque serialized segments throughout that the author uses so effectively to build that sense of mystery and dread.

cheers to netgalley and the publisher for fronting me a review copy!

[Ms. McFaul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Are you kidding me? All that? ALL OF THAT FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT THE END? Seriously? How did this even get published? I am so mad. This was absolute garbage. I just can't even.

[Anna Chu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Imagine a book with great spooky vibes, weird shit happening with mystery mine setting and a lot of build up to…nothing. That’s literally it. The main thing of what happened wasn’t written. We skip through the ending and (spoiler) mine destruction to a very vague ending. How did they do it? Fuck knows. What happened there? Blank space. Are they alive? Unlikely but ya know, it’s spooky vague.

Anticlimactic doesn’t even start to cover it.

[gauri · Rating 3 out of 5]

hmmm this book is one of those 'its not you its me" kind of books. i really liked the paranormal element. the spooky descriptions and tense atmospheric moments stayed strong throughout. but it didn't keep me engrossed in the story or the supposed mystery element.

thank you page street and netgalley for the arc!

[scar · Rating 3 out of 5]

one of my biggest horror pet peeves are scenes with or about visions, hallucinations, weird dreams (there's just no way this can be done well for the whole length of ANY book) and this had a TON of them. they were creepy and interesting for quite some time, but by the end i was tired of them. they became repetitive, and in the final parts of the book i was just rolling my eyes so hard.

the characters were just good; not bad, but not great either. i was seriously disappointed in some of the decisions they made. they (just a tiny spoiler; it happens very early on) went to the place that was clearly evil numerous times. and for no good reason at all, which was so frustrating.

a major plot point was wildly unbelievable, too. in this case i'm not even buying the "evil mine influence" reasoning in any way. i won't spoil what that thing was because it's a pretty big event (happening somewhere in the middle of the book), but dude. i just can't believe it got resolved (or rather, it didn't get resolved) like that. and then it led to the main characters making even more horrendous decisions.

the ending fell rather flat, unfortunately, so that's disappointing.

also, the sapphic romance was just an afterthought in this. the friendships were more important, which is fine. but i was still kind of hoping for more.

last complaint. i wish the spiral thing went somewhere. it was such a tease.

from the good things: the writing style was good. and i admit that a few moments gave me very strong creeps and one image in particular was stuck in my mind, it was so haunting (the woman's story about the eyes outside the window). the plot itself was absolutely my kind of vibe and i was interested to see where it would go. the short chapters in found footage style about various paranormal shows were fun but they, too, became tiring after a while. bonus points for the ghoul boys reference, i adored that. love the cover, too.

[aro · Rating 4 out of 5]

gay people in a haunted mine!!

if you liked this book, you should check out this interview with the author for some insights into how it came to be + her new book👀
https://ohnobooks.wordpress.com/2022/...

[talia ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

finishing this book and absolutely loving it means that spooky season is officially upon us !!

[lauren mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review to come. Spoiler Alert: I’m disappointed

[Garci’s.BooksHaven · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a semi-good read. I was looking for something short and entertaining and I thought it was about time to read since having on my tbr for so long.

And though it was a good read, I hated how many holes that were in this short read. I really thought more would be explained but as it got closer to the end, it felt less explained and more rushed.

So rushed it didn’t even feel like the book got an end. Even the added romance felt like a ‘whoops forgot to add that in’.

I wanted to give this a lower review but as I said it was entertaining 🤷🏾‍♀️. Like a random show that’s playing reruns and it's that one episode that pulls you in and even though it's left on a cliffhanger, you know you're not going to actually start watching the show and that’s exactly how the book felt.

Thank you, 💋

[Renee Godding · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars
Rounded down for a bit of a dissatisfying ending. Nonetheless very much worth the read if you're on the lookout for a YA small-town-horror novel.

PS: is it just me, or is this book só similar in set up and vibe to The Dead and the Dark. Both came out around the same time, both have LGBTQ+ representation, both deal with a small town haunted by a supernatural presence, and both have a ghost-hunting show at their centre... Not that I'm complaining: if you liked one, you will probably like the other!

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

To Break A Covenant tells the story of a town that is abandoned after a mining accident. Coal fires continue to burn underground & over time there have been strange occurrences & people who enter the mine are never the same afterwards.
Alison Ames' debut novel does borrow elements from Silent Hill, but she comes up with plenty of original ideas of her own. The friendship between the four main girls is well handled & there are some good supporting roles as well. It's not an amazing horror story, but it's a promising debut from a new author.

[Aly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of promise to be great, but the ending was rough and let me down. I enjoyed the setting of a small town with a paranormal twist and definitely wanted to know what was in the mine. At first the clips of various ghost hunter shows were confusing, but once I understood what was happening I liked seeing glimpses of the townspeople's stories. A lot of tragedy has happened here and I wanted answers.

Spoiler alert: there are no answers. The ending is pretty open and we don't even know if some characters are alive or not. I'm not sure if the author wanted us to guess and wonder, or if they just weren't sure how to conclude things. Either way, it's a good idea and the first three quarters are well done, it just falls flat in the final stretch.

[rowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

oh man that open ending is going to lightly maim me emotionally

ohohoohohoho this was so engaging and incredibly thrilling to read. i wouldn't say i got the creeps while reading it but i was doing my best not to think about some of the descriptions at 12pm at night. plus, the sapphic romance was very minimal but still super cute?? i really enjoyed this one! absolutely ZERO complaints and just a good time and i wish more people knew about it!! just a group of diverse platonic soulmate girls kicking ass in a horror novel. this debut was excellent and i cannot wait for the author's next book :)

plus, the fucked up deer was a nice touch. this would be a fucking banger as a horror movie bro

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stayed up til 3am reading the first draft of this book and I cannot WAIT to hold a published copy in my hands next year!!!!!!

[Garrison Weekes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read Uzumaki by Junji Ito instead.

[Sam Donovan · Rating 4 out of 5]

did i have a clear understand of the supernatural? no. did that bother me? also no. i liked these girls and their friendships together. i love watching ghost hunting youtube videos so it tickled something in my brain. i overall had fun with this even if it was lacking in some areas so - 3.5 / 5

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This was awesome. An easy one-day read. Super unique and definitely creepy. I’d recommend this for anyone in a horror mood.

[Lousbookstuff · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

I absolutely love stories like this with paranormal, small town vibes and this book has that in spades! A fantastically written, wonderfully spooky story of a town with a dark history. A terrible mine accident that left the town haunted. A mine that is still burning years after the accident, raining ash into the town and giving the townsfolk nightmares. I think the plot was written amazingly well and loved the way that media footage was included as a way to provide more history about the town and to paint the bigger picture as to what was going on in this crazy, strange place. It's a very creepy book that will make your spine tingle and have you on the edge of your seat. 


I really enjoyed the friendship group in this book. They are a closely bonded group of weird and wonderful... all very different from each other but as close as sisters, willing to do whatever it takes for each other. I really liked the way that their beliefs surrounding the town hauntings were all so different from each other and the way that those beliefs shifted and changed throughout the chapters. All four were characters you could really love and get behind. Lisey was by far the most interesting as a girl who is a little bit odd... she trains crows, believes in omens and hauntings and as the one who is generally the weirdest that sort of makes her my favourite by default. 

This is a very fast paced book and I genuinely read it all in less than 24 hours. I just couldn't stop reading. I loved the way the town was developed with all the history and "ghost-busting" videos just added that little bit extra for me as well. I also adored the characters and the way they were all introduced and the way their friendship was portrayed. They are a super fierce bunch of girls and it was such a rollercoaster ride really... but like, a ride in the dark? Because it was so spooky! 

I had so much fun reading this story and would definitely recommend to anyone who likes strong female characters & friendships, haunted towns and general paranormal craziness. This would make for the perfect addition to anyone's TBR for the upcoming spooky season! I am not 100% sure how sold I was on the ending... it was a solid ending with no cliff-hanger but wasn't what I was expecting or hoping for. Not a bad ending but not one that blew me away either so that is probably my only real criticism. The fact that this was a debut absolutely blew me away. I am keen to see what the author writes in the future and would be happy to dive into more of her books! 

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to read an arc of this book and it is everything my haunted-town loving heart could have asked for! Featuring a group of friends who I would literally go into the mine for, this book was haunting, beautiful, sad, hopeful, and at times laugh out loud funny. Whilst the setting is absolutely amazing (think Silent Hill if people actually lived next to it) and the scenes in the mine itself gave me goosebumps, it was the character dynamics that had me truly invested. Alison knows how to write relationships, and I wanna be part of Clem, Nina, Lisey and Piper's friend group so bad. I also adored the bits of transcripts of footage from ghost hunting squads - it really ramped up the suspense.

Basically, I devoured this book and I will be yelling about it for the forseeable future.