I almost want to quote The Addams Family.. Creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky.. That's a good description of this book.

I was drawn in from the start. It was a little slow, but had enough continuing character development to keep me interested. Then it continued to build.

However, I knew early on what was going on.. One sentence in there foreshadows the rest of the book. Plus, once the intended scary stuff started, it actually was less scary. I was more creeped out by the town and the suspense in the beginning.

I received an advance copy from the publisher and net galley which did not affect my review.

Clara leaves her mother and the city for the summer to stay with her father in his old hometown, an extremely remote area where the townspeople are less than friendly, and weird things are happening. When she questions her father or the people in town, no one will give her any answers. Her father won’t even talk to Clara about Zoe, her twin sister who drowned when they were 8. All he’ll say is stay out of the woods and the lake.
I found the book slow to get started so found myself skimming ahead until it became interesting. Scary and weird enough for a good YA read.

I received a copy of this from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are my own.

This book was surprisingly good, it was just so creepy and exciting! I wasn't expecting too much as I haven't read anything from this author previously. But I really enjoyed this book. It is a very cleverly imagined horror book. I was on the edge of my seat and kept turning page after page. I haven't enjoyed a book like this in a long time in this genre and I think Nick Scorza has done a great job.

I hope this book gets made into a movie!


Sixteen-year-old Clara Morris is facing an awkward summer with her father in the tiny upstate town of Redmarch Lake. Clara’s relationship with her parents—and with life in general—has been strained since she lost her twin sister, Zoe, when the girls were eight. As a child, her sister had been her whole world—they even shared a secret invented twin language. Clara has managed to rebuild herself as best she can, but she still feels a hole in her life from the absence of her twin, and she suspects she always will.

She soon finds that Redmarch Lake, where her father’s family has lived for generations, is a very unusual place. The townspeople live by odd rules and superstitions. The eerily calm lake the town is named for both fascinates and repels her. The town’s young people are just as odd and unfriendly as their parents. Clara manages to befriend the one boy willing to talk to an outsider, but he disappears during a party in the woods.

The next day, he is found dead in the lake under mysterious circumstances. The townspeople all treat this as a tragic accident. Clara isn’t buying it, but she doesn’t know what to do until she receives a mysterious note hinting at murder—a note written in the language she shared with her twin sister, Zoe.