The Wicked Deep book review

 If you haven’t noticed, witchy stories have taken over a good portion of bookstagram lately, and for awhile I blew it off because witches aren’t really my thing. I’ll stay in my other worldly fantasies, thank you. But, then October came along, with all the spooky vibes, and I got a wild hair and decided it was time for a witchy book. It just so happened that The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw is the one my library had, so that’s the one I read. 

The Blurb:

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. 

My thoughts: 

This book was good. Very atmospheric. The prose and descriptions were so delightfully spooky and vivid, coupled with an oddly easy going pace that gave you that feeling that things were going too good and something horrible was going to jump out at any moment. 

Which was basically what kept happening. 

I really liked the characters, particularly Bo, and the alternating timelines was really cool too. 

Honestly, the first three quarters of the book had me wondering why I’d been avoiding spooky witchy books for so long. 

And then all of the sudden I got hit with this foreboding of the impending plot twist. And it wasn’t the pleasant kind of anticipation that comes when you think you’ve got the story figured out, but a rapid backpedaling of No Please Don’t Do This To Me. 

But. No one listened to me. And I was right. 

I won’t say the ending is bad. Because it’s not. But I feel like it didn’t match the rest of the book. People who like bittersweet endings would probably love the entire thing from beginning to end, but for me the last portion felt crushing and sort of slapped together. 

All in all though, it was a fun Halloween time read that was the right mix of spooky, suspenseful, romantic, etc, and unlike the movies I watched for Halloween, I could still sleep after reading this.