<strong>Logan was a wonderful protagonist with an arc of finding home and healing. </strong>She's putting on a brave face and fighting back with her witty retorts and sarcasm, but deep down Logan is a lonely creature. She <strong>never had a place to call home, as her ghost hunting Dads have their own TV Show and therefore moved her around a lot.</strong> Generally, Logan feels like a <u>stranger in her own family, someone who isn't truly wanted and has no real place here</u>. It really touched me how the book discussed her feeling of isolation, especially as Logan is immediately shunned in Snakebite as well, since her fathers aren't really welcome there. She's tired of the lies she hears from her parents, so <strong>Logan sets out to find the truth Snakebite and why her fathers wanted to return to their childhood home</strong> in the first place. I appreciated the journey of <u>Logan trying to finally create a space that felt like home and in the end, starting the journey of healing from her trauma</u>. She goes through a lot in this book, but I was rooting for her all the time!

<strong>Her dynamic with Ashley was great, though this <em>very</em> slow-burn romance wasn't the focus of the book. </strong> Ashley is a Snakebite native and from a family of great influence in the small-town. <u>Ever since her boyfriend Tristan disappeared 6 months ago, she's determined to find him alive and bring him back home</u>. When the mysterious Logan and her shunned family appear, it seems like they are Ashley's only help when so many others have given up on Tristan. <strong>Ashley and Logan become reluctant allies</strong> in their search to find out the mysteries of Snakebite and quickly form an unlikely friendship, which slowly blossoms into more. It's<strong> more of subplot to the story</strong> (so be prepared for the mystery to take up way more space), <strong>but I enjoyed this very complicated slowburn romance</strong>! <u>Logan and Ashley are often at odds, because Logan's fathers are shunned in town and seen as responsible for the bad things happening</u>. Meanwhile, Ashley's family has a certain image that she is afraid to tarnish and her friends scorn Logan as well. She also deals with figuring out that she didn't have the same romantic feelings Tristan had for her - though she still loves him a lot as a best friend - and <strong>that she might like girls</strong>. The latter is a Taboo in her small town, so Ashley is caught between her family's expectations and what her heart truly wants.

<strong>I appreciated the depiction of complicated family dynamics so much! </strong>As I already mentioned, <u>Logan doesn't feel at home with her two Dads - Alejo and Brandon - and has an especially strained relationship with Brandon</u>. She feels like he doesn't love her and tries to stay away from her as much as possible, so Logan has given up trying to understand him or connect with him. Her relationship with Alejo is slightly better, as he's got her sense of humor and is really trying to be a good parent. However, he isn't perfect either and often hides things from her or ignores her hurt feelings over Brandon. <strong>I liked Brandon and Alejo as characters because they felt so flawed and realistic</strong>. We slowly find out why they act so secretive and distant, as they deal with their own trauma. Coming out in a homophobic small town wasn't easy on them and even now they experience the hatred of their town. <u>They are two people trying their best to keep Logan safe, while also not realizing how much their behavior hurts her</u>. I want more of these family dynamics that are difficult and yet full of hidden love. I especially appreciated how in the end <strong>they slowly begin the journey of healing and mending their family</strong>, though Logan knows there is still a lot to be done and that things won't be remotely okay for a long while. Apart from her dads, <u>I also loved to see Logan connect to Alejo's side of the family</u>, who still lives at Snakebite: Gracia and Elexis, her cousin!

<strong>The story was an addictive blend between mystery, paranormal and thriller.</strong>I read the <strong>first 50% in one sitting, because the story was so engaging and good</strong>. The author is masterful at slowly building up the mystery and exploring the character's relationships. I <u>especially liked the paranormal element of the story</u>, as an entity known as The Dark is involved in the mystery of Snakebite and Logan's Dads run a ghost-hunting show ... which might seem like a scam, but it turns out there are actually ghosts. Some people can even see the supernatural and it fits perfectly into the<strong> mystery of why people keep dying/disappearing in Snakebite and who is behind it all</strong>. The twists were good - though not mind-blowing - and I liked how the author build up all the tension and the subtle clues as to what was really happening 👀

<strong>IN CONCLUSION.</strong> ➽ <i>The Dead and the Dark </i>was a <strong>fantastic blend of mystery, paranormal and complicated family relationships</strong>. The characters were all wonderfully flawed and realistic, all trying their best but also ending up hurting others. I liked the nuance in the characters Arcs and relationships as well. If you're looking for a paranormal mystery, I'd highly recommend checking out this book.

Honestly... I was gripped at the start of the book with the setting of the scene of Snakebite and the background context. I was intrigued by the premise of the book. However, the book quickly lost my attention and enthusiasm. As a "crime junkie" who likes mysteries and cases, I thought that this would be the perfect book for me. I, unfortunately, am DNF'ing the book. It's too long and I tend to like my thriller/mysteries to be as straightforward as they can be. However, Gould has a great writing style, and perhaps I could try to read this book again in the future.

This book is not my typical genre. I was totally sucked in and devoured it. Really interesting premise and just enough info to provide some context for the past but keep the story moving forward.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review

Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: The Dead and the Dark

Author: Courtney Gould

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 3/5

Recommended For...: mystery, thriller, LGBTQIA+

Publication Date: August 3, 2021

Genre: YA Mystery

Recommended Age: Can’t recommend, DNFed

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Pages: 352

Synopsis: Something is wrong in Snakebite, Oregon. Teenagers are disappearing, some turning up dead, the weather isn’t normal, and all fingers seem to point to TV’s most popular ghost hunters who have just returned to town. Logan Ortiz-Woodley, daughter of TV's ParaSpectors, has never been to Snakebite before, but the moment she and her dads arrive, she starts to get the feeling that there's more secrets buried here than they originally let on.

Ashley Barton’s boyfriend was the first teen to go missing, and she’s felt his presence ever since. But now that the Ortiz-Woodleys are in town, his ghost is following her and the only person Ashley can trust is the mysterious Logan. When Ashley and Logan team up to figure out who—or what—is haunting Snakebite, their investigation reveals truths about the town, their families, and themselves that neither of them are ready for. As the danger intensifies, they realize that their growing feelings for each other could be a light in the darkness.

Review: I had to DNF this read at about 34% in. The book just wasn’t keeping my interest, it seemed too predictable, and while I’d like to try it again, it will probably be awhile before I do.

Verdict: It’s good, just wasn’t keeping me interested.

[2 Stars]

This book really bothered me. Logan and her dad's behaved as though they first met 5 minutes before the book started, the explanation for the Dark was lackluster, and the characters made wholly irrational decisions for the entire book.
I started this with medium-sized hopes and it did not rise to meet them.

Wow. This book was so creepy, but SO GOOD! I was left guessing until the last few pages. I definitely didn't see the twist coming at the end. I felt totally grounded in the story, and had to stop reading a few times just to get my bearings. I'm not a horror genre person, but I wouldn't really call horror, I guess? It was definitely super creepy and unsettled me a lot at certain points, but not enough to have me stop reading. I actually was super invested and finished it within two days (not normal for me) so that has to mean something. Overall, I enjoyed this so much, I actually really want to go get my own copy so I can read it again during the spooky season!

Teens are disappearing, some are dead, but the only thing that has changed is that the TV show supernatural ghost hunters have come to town. Could they really be stirring up something or is it just coincidence that a killer may be on the loose.

This just didn’t end up being a book that interested me. When I first read the premise, I was very excited and invested, but getting into it made it clear that it just wasn’t for me. Hopefully it works for others out there!

This was pretty good! Loved the way it brought together social issues and the supernatural. Great character work, really good atmospheric writing, pretty decent murder mystery, very compelling plotline!

Bring on all the spooky reads. I love a good small town mystery, and ghost stories feel exactly right for seasonal reading right now. I found the core story to be super compelling, giving this book the coveted quality of unputdownability. The author captured the claustrophobic nature of the small towns to a tee.

Here I am, once again ignoring my personal rule of “no more reading spooky books set in a forest” and diving headfirst into The Dead and The Dark by Courtney Gould. While this debut YA novel isn’t set right in the middle of a forest—it takes place in the small, rural town of Snakebite, Oregon—the characters spend a lot of time walking through forested areas and visiting a strange, dilapidated cabin in the woods.

Before we get too far into this one, here are the trigger/content warnings for this book: homophobia, homophobic slurs, on page death, murder, attempted murder, and death of a child.

The Dead and The Dark follows our main character, Logan, and her two dads, who have their own ghost hunting TV show. Sounds good, right? Who doesn’t want to tag along on an adventure with ghost hunters? Well, Logan doesn’t. While she has a great relationship with one of her dads, her relationship with the other is incredibly strained. They can’t even be in the same room together, so when her family packs up and heads to the small town of Snakebite, she wants to be anywhere else in the world.

What happens in Snakebite is a bit all over the place. We have ghost hunters allegedly scouting for their upcoming season, locals mourning the recent death of a local teenager, and Logan teaming up with a girl named Ashley to find out what really happened to her boyfriend. It’s all a bit scattered and hard to keep track of, but it works.

Residents of the small town don’t know what’s going on, Logan doesn’t know what secrets her dads are keeping from her, and us as readers are equally confused.

Snakebite is hiding cold, dark secrets, and it’s only a matter of time until everything is brought up to the surface.

While paranormal events and creatures seem to be popping up in every corner, so too do very real-life horrors of facing prejudice and violence for being your true self, and standing up for who you are and what you believe in. I’ll admit, the homophobia in this book seemed like a bit much at times (especially as an LGBTQ+ reader), but as someone who grew up in a small town, it unfortunately wasn’t that far off.

Overall, The Dead and The Dark proved to be an enjoyable debut. It has twists and turns, unexplained occurrences, dark secrets, and while the twist was somewhat predictable, it also had a pinch of tenderness to round out a book that was otherwise full of doom and gloom.

This story was absolutely amazing.
At first I wasn't sure how I would feel about because ghost stories ARE NOT my thing, but I quickly fell in love with Logan and the mystery of what really happened in Snakebite all those years ago.
I loved watching the journey of Logan's relationship with her dads, her relationship with the other kids in town, and just all of it.
The way the story switches between the present day disappearances and the past was so eerily brilliant and I found myself obsessed with finding out the truth.
And when the truth was revealed I was SHOCKED. There was so much that made perfect sense but I never would have pieced together on my own.
This was truly an amazing story and I loved it. I cannot wait to see what Courtney Gould does next.

Interesting premise of a family of ghost hunters returning to their hometown to solve an ongoing mystery. Characters are very well written and a very creepy story. Loved it.

honestly, i think one of my issues with this book was the paranormal aspect of the plot and the book. like, i feel that i feel like they would talk about the dark, but not really talk about it. like, i feel like it was something about how we would get these chapters about how the dark picked their next victim, and how they killed the last person or whatever. and i just feel like it was just so boring. and i feel like the whole paranormal vibe was just a mess and i feel like gould really had no clue what they were doing with the paranormal aspect of it. and how they wanted to deal with it all, and i think it was honestly a complete mess.

and i also feel like that there was so many questions about so many things in this book. like, i feel like the biggest issue with this book was how snakebite played into it all. like, i feel like there was so many things that just didn't make sense and how they didn't really explain to much about it, just like the basic knowledge, but even at that, it still didn't really make sense. like i feel that they said what happened, but they also didn't really explain it at the same time. and i honestly think gould had no clue what they were doing with the dark aspect. and i feel like the one part of the dark person, i feel like they literally never explained it at all, which just sucked so much.

but, with the whole dark aspect, there was also this murder mystery plot line, which i'm not sure is a spoiler, but they bring it up really soon in the book, so. but, with this, they had this killer on the loose, and i feel like the actual killer was honestly so easy to tell who did it and who the killer is. like, they pretty much had who everyone thought it was, and then this other person that you could just tell something was weird with them, so it was easy to tell they did it. and i honestly hated it, since i feel like it was so easy to be able to tell and all.

one thing i did like was the plot about alejo and brandon together, and i honestly really liked to see two gay guys being parents and to have them have this stable relationship. and that it was so cool that they were just healthy and this big relationship, and that they honestly worked so well together and also were so in love. but, i also really liked that we got to see them before all of this started, and that we got to see their past and all of it, i honestly really liked it.

i also did like logan. like, i feel that she was one of those characters that was so complex and i feel like it was just so cool. like, i feel that she honestly had so many great qualities and that i really liked her. and also that she was just so cool with her childhood, and i honestly wish they went more in depth about that since i think it was just so cool. and i do wish that we got to see her with her parents more, and i also feel that it was just cool to see a whole family that was queer, since i feel like that doesn't happen to much in books.

overall, i liked ashley's character, but she by far wasn't my favorite. like, i think she honestly was a nice character, but i feel like she had some homophobic moments throughout the story that i honestly didn't care about. and also like that when she did that thing around like 65% - 70%, i honestly hated her so much. like, i feel that the whole even made me so uncomfortable, i really hated it. like, i feel that it was just so stupid and i think it was so terrible.

and i feel like the development on their relationship was just not good. like, i feel that before the event they were overall, a decent romance. like, i feel that it was still more tell not show, but i do think it had potential to grow and to work. but, than i think the event happened, and i feel like it was just so terrible development, since it went down instead of up. and i think they should have just fixed it and made it better. and like, i think that after the event that they couldn't grow from that and i don't know how or why logan decided to trust ashley again. since, i know that i could never do what she was doing.

but, than i think that the plot about the missing boy annoyed me. like, i feel that it was just so stupid done, since i think that tristian, was such the cliché good boy. like, he went missing and than all they talked about was just that, he got good grades and he was this golden boy. and i wish that they changed it and that they didn't do anything to help him. and like the only thing that they did was talk about how he was this all american boy and that he was just so good, and they never made him seem human, kind of like they did in a good girl's guide to murder. and it honestly just kind of annoyed me.

but, i also feel like this book had to many secrets in this book. like, i feel like secrets in books aren't the end of the world, and i mean these books need secrets to keep this. but i feel like there was still so many secrets about how they did thinks and about the past of this town, from like these girls parents. like, i feel like they all said 'we'll tell you soon/when this is over / now isn't the right time' and this honestly just annoyed me since it was just kind of boring.

3.5 stars

The Dead and the Dark checks a lot of boxes for a YA thriller: small town setting, a series of mysterious deaths, and an outsider teaming up with a local to defeat the evil lurking among them. We have seen it all before, making Gould's execution of the tropes of primary importance.

In certain aspects, it does deliver. Gould does a great job of establishing the local vs. outsider dynamic and the overall pacing of the mystery is good. While I did guess a few of the twists, there were some that really came out of left field and had my jaw dropping.

However, there were two major issues that I couldn't get over while reading this book. Considering how central the romance is by the end, its development is incredibly stilted. There are a total of 3 moments total that reference either character's feelings about the other before they have their first kiss. It then goes from zero to 100, which made the entire plot point feel like it had been inserted after the fact. In addition, I found myself constantly wondering why the Dark was connected to Snakebite in particular.

I must say that I did mostly enjoy this book, but I lament the underdeveloped aspects that might have made this book a knockout for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an e-arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this novel. I haven't read a young adult horror/ mystery in a really long time and I was nervous it wouldn't be what I was looking for. However, Courtney Gould did a fabulous job at creating a dark and chilling atmosphere in which to ground her story and make the characters come to life. They aren't the most developed characters but the way in which the story was told, jumping from person to person lends itself to the immersive setting. Gould doesn't add unnecessary gore or over-the-top descriptions of death, and yet the novel comes to life by allowing the reader to visualize it themselves. I will say it is a young adult novel so you will have to suspend some belief in ways that you may not with an adult horror. But overall, a great horror novel for younger readers looking for a spooky read for the fall.

As a thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books, I would like to give an unbiased review of Courtney Gould’s YA debut “The Dead and the Dark.” This story addressed some hard-hitting topics such as identity, and grief. Their presence in the novel added to its depth and complexity. Things I liked about the novel included the diversity in its characters ex. queer characters, non-nuclear family, and showed natural progress in characters explored their sexual identity. Gould showed that the characters and all aspects of their identity make them who they are and are agents of change in their own story rather than the story centering around what makes them diverse. The allure of a small-town setting with the added atmosphere of dark isolated woods, lakeside dwellings, and ghost hunters made this appealing to me and more. The story's depth was explored in our main character's eyes when she (Logan Ortiz- Woodley) explored the place of her birth and sought a place to call home. Her fathers added a “Supernatural” quality to the novel as they presented an ongoing search for Supernatural occurrences though a couple and not brothers like the CW show. Overall I enjoyed this novel and would recommend it to fans of Riverdale and Supernatural. I gave this a strong 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

I liked the premise of this book; however, I felt like the relationship between Logan and Ashley was a bit forced. I would still recommend this to younger readers.

As a lover of all things paranormal I really enjoyed it. I would have liked to have seen more of the ghost hunting aspects since that’s what the synopsis was based on but that’s just me. I’ve seen reviews saying the ending left them with more questions about the dark. I disagree I think that was handled good. Sometimes there’s no answers for the questions we seek.

Thank you to the Publisher and Netgalley for the advanced e-reader copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

i really thought this was stunning, i was so surprised by it. compelling without being sensationalist, thoughtful without being pretentious. a knockout