For some reason, I couldn't get into this book as easily as others. The storyline was great. I loved how everyone was going missing. I felt like a little more character building could have happened. It's would be a 4 star storyline but it's lacking in some areas. So I'd give 3.5

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Dead and the Dark was an extremely well-written debut queer supernatural mystery and I was thrilled to be able to get my hands on a copy. I have already ordered a copy for my library and will look out for more from this debut author.

I am a massive fan of paranormal shows and I felt that Gould understood that world well. Logan and her two dads are likeable and you immediately want to figure out what is happening in Snakebite, Oregon with them and why they are investigating there. As you slowly learn that the dads have a history in Snakebite, the suspense and mystery surrounding them builds up. Why is Logan's dad so distant and cold? What happened in Snakebite all those years ago? Is her dad responsible for the missing teens?

The mystery of the missing teens is done well with the supernatural occurrences connecting Logan's family with the town. At this time we meet Ashley, the town's golden girl and girlfriend of the first missing teen. But Ashley is experiencing strange visions and feelings and thinks she can FEEL her boyfriend's presence. As she gets deeper into the mystery, she starts to fall deeper with Logan. Their blossoming relationship was done well and you were completely routing for them.

No spoilers but I loved the ending for both the mystery and the relationships. So many paranormal books don't no how to end but this had a most satisfying ending. This was the perfect romantic/paranormal mystery and I'm here for it. Well done!

A spooky book about small towns and ghost hunters with bi rep? I was in from the start. Though some parts felt overlong, it didn't keep me from enjoying every bit of this book.

The Dead and the Dark leaves you chilled from the inside out. Moments in this book truly made me shudder and look over my shoulder.

Logan’s Dads are paranormal reality stars, but all she can think about is the few sweet months standing between her nomadic lifestyle and turning 18. The future yawns before her when her family suddenly relocates to her Dads’ (maybe) central Oregon, Snakebite. Alejo calls the town insular, but given the Dads are natives and still wildly unpopular and unwelcome (slurs painted on their hotel room doors, for example) makes this novel ripe with tension and intrigue.
CW:
- intense feelings of terror/horror
- EXTREME homophobia
- hate crimes
- child death
- possession (demonic in nature)
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𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒! Spooky season has arrived and what better way to usher in the reason for the szn than a spectacularly gruesome tale of a claustrophobic, homophobic town riddled with an evil essence infecting the population as an allegory for human rights in 2021…do not sleep on this book. I posted my review earlier this week, but after talking over ANOTHER heavy and effed up book with @_thebookcase , I decided I needed better content warnings on my posts. Definitely would not want anyone walking into this book blind. There’s a LOT of triggering, albeit vital, elements to this story, and I don’t think any of it is for shock value, but for facilitating the real dangers The Community faces/endures/survives.
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The Dead and the Dark is the PERFECT spooky season read! You’ve got a
- claustrophobic small town,
- missing and murdered teens,
- a LGBT LA girl coming into rural Oregon and understanding immediately why her Dads ran away and never looked back,
- a paranormal reality show,
- and a forbidden enemies-to-we-don’t-know-what-we-are-ship.
- It’s creepy, spooky, and totally sets the mood for major skin-crawling moments.

The Dead and the Dark had me hooked right away. We have alternating point of views from both main characters: Logan Ortiz-Woodley and Ashley Barton. Logan has just been uprooted from her family's latest "home" to hunker down in Snakebite, Oregon. Snakebite is a place she had never heard of until her dad Brandon relocated there 6 months ago to scout locations for their ghost-hunter television series. Lo and behold when she finds out this is where both her dads, Brandon and Alejo, grew up. Suddenly the family she thought she knew seems shrouded in secrets and lies. Add this to the growing distance between her and her dad Brandon and Logan is just plain unhappy. It hurts to feel totally out of sync with the only family you have. And now she's been plopped down into a homophobic clique-y little town that she hates.

And the town hates her and her dads right back. In fact, they are fairly convinced that the missing teen who disappeared one week after Brandon came to town is connected to Brandon. So Logan has very little choice but to team up with the town golden child, Ashley Barton, to solve this mystery of the missing teen and clear her dads names.

What ensues is an eerie hunt to find a killer. To make it more chilling a third narrator adds their voice to the story: the Dark. An evil entity that has taken possession of a body and is helping them kill. It's heart-pounding to here the perspective of the Dark and it's host, especially as it finds the victims.

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for allowing me to read this!

I was instantly intrigued by the synopsis of this book. This book instantly drew me in, I got to explore through the eyes of our main character and this is always my favorite way to discover these details of the story and, it was done very well in this book. I really enjoyed this book and the plot. This author did amazing. I loved the writing style.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I already knew that I love intriguing thrillers, ghost stories, and sapphic romances, but I didn't realize how badly I needed these things to be woven together until I read Courtney Gould's debut novel. The Dead and the Dark was engaging and atmospheric, filled with complex characters and intriguing revelations.

Logan Ortiz-Woodley has lived her life on the road, traveling from place to place as her dads, Alejo and Brandon, explore haunted locations on their TV show, ParaSpectors. When her dads bring her to their hometown of Snakebite, Oregon, they tell her they are investigating the mysterious disappearance of a local teenager named Tristan. Logan suspects that there's more to the situation than Alejo and Brandon are telling her, so she teams up with Ashley Barton, Tristan's girlfriend, to try to get some answers about what's really happening in Snakebite.

This book had me absolutely hooked. It was so suspenseful; the constant feeling that something important was about to happen made The Dead and the Dark unputdownable. I was not disappointed in those moments that I chose to read "just one more chapter," because important information was revealed frequently. Throughout the course of this novel, all of my questions about the mysterious town of Snakebite were answered one by one. I had a lot of predictions as to what was going to happen but none of them were correct, and I loved how unpredictable this story was.

As for Snakebite itself, Gould skillfully created a small rural town that I was able to envision perfectly. Her descriptions of the atmosphere were so incredibly rich and detailed that she managed to bring the setting of Snakebite to life, as if it was another character. I also thought that the way most of the residents of Snakebite acted towards Logan and her dads provided important commentary. Many of the townspeople have close-minded views and show contempt of "outsiders." As Ashley develops a relationship with Logan and turns her back on Snakebite's old-fashioned and bigoted ways, the reader sees the value of treating others with empathy and understanding.

The only thing I didn't love about this book was one of the main aspects of the ending. In order to avoid spoilers, I won't include it here, but feel free to read an explanation of this in my Goodreads review.

Overall, I thought this was an excellent debut novel! I would highly recommend it, especially to readers who like intriguing mysteries with spooky atmospheres. I'm certainly looking forward to reading more by Courtney Gould in the future.

I enjoyed The Dead and the Dark. It wasn't what I thought it would be, but that's not a bad thing! I expected more supernatural rather than paranormal elements, but it didn't bother me one bit. I liked the main characters, Ashley and Logan. Courtney Gould did an excellent job in writing an enemies to reluctant partners to lovers dynamic. I also liked the writing and the chapter divisions. My only complaint was that I felt the first half was slow and not super captivating. After that, the narrative picked up, and I couldn't put it down until the end. I recommend this book. It's unlike anything I've read this year, filled with compelling characters, a thrilling mystery, and complex dynamics. A heart-wrenching narrative, The Dead and the Dark broke my heart and pieced it back together.

A weird, spooky little story that peels itself back a layer at a time. It tackles so many things: LGBTQ+ issues, small-town secrets, the paranormal, being a teenager, and complicated family relationships + dynamics. I definitely recommend it if you're interested, and I think I'll be thinking about it for awhile. The only thing I have to say is that it sort of felt like the ending dragged on a little long for my personal taste, but I read an ARC of this, so most of my other ~complaints are likely chalked up to that.

Thanks to @netgalley and @wednesdaybooks for my review copy. This is the perfect type of book for October. What a debut.
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Hate. Hate is what’s the scariest. When people not only let hate into their hearts but also let it consume them. That’s the scariest thing.
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Logan moves to Snake Bite, Oregon with her dads who are the stars of a show called ParaSpectors. They follow and investigate the paranormal. Now they are back to her dads hometown and teens are disappearing and the weather is changing. The kicker? It started happening when on of her dads showed up at Snake Bite in order to get a lay of the land and see what they come up with for a new season. There Logan meets Ashley who’s boyfriend, Tristan, was the first person to go missing. Tristan might be missing but Ashley still feels his presence and has been seeing his spirit! Yup! Ghosts. Then there’s the fact that the town people don’t accept Logan and her dads.
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While Ashley and Logan team up find out what’s really happening they uncover many secrets. The girls also find themselves having feelings for each other. We see that while ghosts might be scary it is actual people who we need to worry about.
-LGBTQ+ rep / sapphic romance
-Ghosts/paranormal
-serial killer
-mystery
So much happening. I was really intrigued by the premise of the story. I do wish that the story would have delved even deeper into some of the topics because this book had all the building blocks to make a huge statement. With that being said, I think people can take away some important things from this book.
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"The Dark is not a monster.
It simply is."

The Dark has returned to Snakebite, Oregon. So have Brandon and Alejo, TV's ParaSpectors. Brandon has been back in town for six months now; he claims to be scouting their hometown as a location for the next season of the show, but won't tell anyone what exactly he's investigating. Now he's joined by Alejo and their daughter Logan. The rural town didn't approve of the couple when they were living here thirteen years ago, and the townspeople now believe they have reason for dislike aside from homophobia. Tristan disappeared a week after Brandon came back.

Tristan's disappearance was declared a cold case a month ago, but his girlfriend Ashley is still searching. Then one day, she sees a shadow she believes to be Tristan and follows it into the woods. She hears his breathing, smells his scent, and finds... no one. Just the cabin in the woods where their friends have hung out on weekends. But she knows she heard his panicked breathing, so she goes to the police station to report her findings. That's where she meets Logan, who has come to the police to report a hate crime; the wall outside of her dads' door has been spray painted with a slur and an accusation that they are responsible for Tristan's death. Logan hears Ashley's explanation of what she experienced and comments that it sounds like a ghost. The girls decide to work together. Ashley needs to know what happened to Tristan, and Logan needs to clear the suspicion around her dads.

But The Dark and its host aren't finished with Snakebite...

This was an enjoyable horror/thriller mystery. I don't know that I've read anything else with TV paranormal investigators but it brings in a lot of interesting situations - what do they believe about their work? Is there truth in it? How do people in a town react when paranormal investigators come to their town? The book opens with The Dark encouraging its host to kill a boy by the lake, and we get this perspective a few more times through the book. There was a twist that I didn't expect which feels like it should have more implications, but I'll ignore that because I did like it. Some interesting relationship dynamics here as well.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the eARC. The Dead and the Dark was published in August.

I loved this. It was creepy and spooky and the reveal on the Dark was very different from other things I've seen. The small town feels like its own character and the people who live in Snakebite feel like real characters.

The Dead and the Dark is an outstanding YA supernatural thriller with strong twists bound to keep readers on their toes throughout. The story takes place in the small Oregon town of Snakebite. Ghost hunters arrive to scout for their next season and their daughter Logan finds herself helping a local girl find out what happened to her missing boyfriend. What happens where there are more secrets than Logan bargained for? The plot is intriguing with a decent romance throughout. The book has a creepy feel throughout. The characters are well-written. Highly recommended!

The Dead and the Dark is a YA thriller about Logan, who’s come to the small town of Snakebite for her dads’ paranormal ghost-hunter show. She hates it here and can’t wait for her dads to stop acting so weird so they can film the episode and leave. Ashely has lived in Snakebite her whole life, but six months ago, her boyfriend went missing and now the whole town assumes he’s dead. Despite their differences, and a family history neither set of parents are willing to get into, Logan and Ashely decide to team up to solve the mystery of what happened to Ashely’s boyfriend so both of them can get back to their normal lives. But Snakebite isn’t all it seems to be, and it’s keeping secrets.
YA thrillers aren’t my normal go-to, and especially not paranormal ones, but this one really worked for me. It was unlike anything I’ve read before and I mean that in a good way.
The plot was the best part about this book. Sometimes I didn’t feel super connected to the characters, but the plot kept me super engaged. If a chapter didn’t end in an explicit cliffhanger, there were other threads I was eager to learn more about, that I read the last 60% in one day. And I’ve heard that one big failing with a lot of thrillers is that the ending twist is a disappointment; that definitely was not the case for this book. The last 30% might be my favorite part, if only for the family dynamics we got.
The book was also spooky! I found myself getting creeped out at some of the descriptions!
I always feel bad when I say I didn’t connect with characters because it really means nothing but it’s true for this book. Logan and Ashley were fine protagonists, but I wasn’t like, connected to the heart for them. I am excited that Logan said she was a lesbian on page, which is a rarity in YA. Their scenes together were cute as well!
I rated this book 3.75 stars. It was an amazing introduction to YA thrillers.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Courtney Gould for this EARC in exchange for my honest review.
There is a significant disservice to The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould by comparing it to Riverdale. I, unfortunately, stuck with Riverdale for about three seasons longer than any person should, and The Dead and the Dark is so much better.
I got stuck in a major reading funk over the summer months, I slowly pushed through my NetGalley backlog, and some TBR’s that sat and waited. I even DNF’d a book I have been dying to read, and then Logan and Ashley came along.
Courtney Gould’s writing style has flow. She keeps interest, builds suspense, and masterfully mixes real life with fantasy and paranormal, to the point I kept forgetting I was reading a ghost story. I found myself googling Snakebite, Oregon, because it felt so real. Gould’s use of language made this fictional town come to life.
She left me chilled to the point that I went to sit outside camping the day after finishing and had flashbacks to murders in the book followed by a serious ‘Hell Nah’ and went back inside my camper, locking the door behind me.
If you are looking for a story with gorgeous LGBTQ representation mixed with suspense and thrill – not to mention.. THAT COVER.. Come on! Please get on The Dead and The Dark for spooky season 2021.

As with most books I read, I didn’t know too much about this one going into it. I knew it was going to be a young adult thriller with a supernatural element, which is exactly the kind of book I’ve been consuming lately, and I knew it was going to be queer. I’m glad I didn’t know anything more than that, however, because taking in this book as it unfolded before me was an amazing experience, and one I wish I could relive.

Logan arrives in Snakebite, Oregon with her two dads, and something is off about the small town. It starts with the fact that a teenager has gone missing, but beyond that, there’s a darkness that lives just below the surface. As the mystery deepens, Logan realizes she’s more connected to this town than she ever could’ve imagined. Her dads are keeping secrets, the town has turned on her family, and there’s a girl she shouldn’t like but can’t stop thinking about.

My favorite part about this story was the pacing—it’s perfectly written to give us a slow burn while simultaneously teasing a new aspect of the mystery in every single chapter. As one question was answered, another three would float to the surface, and the final reveal was undoubtedly worth the wait. But this book was so much more than the mystery—it’s also about that feeling of darkness and depression that lives in all of us; it’s about standing up to hate and realizing we’re not as different from each other as we might think; and it’s about queerness, love, acceptance and, most importantly, hope for the future.

More of a 3.5 star, but this was a really touching story! I think if I had prepared myself a little more for the immense amount of homophobia working throughout the plot of this book, I would have been in a better mindset for taking the story in. However, I understand why it was included and what points were made, though I think at a certain point it became redundant. Overall I really enjoyed the queer relationships and representation of family, and I loved the ghostly aspects. This is a creepy and lovely story about grief and queer connection!

This book is perfectly creepy for spooky season. In addition to the perfect fall vibe, it centers on a queer dysfunctional family and a small town where discrimination still runs rampant.

Logan's relationship with her fathers is mostly that of an absent relationship - her fathers are typically on the road filming their paranormal tv show as seasoned ghost hunters. Then Logan is forced to return with her fathers to their hometown, Snakebite. There, Logan is faced with instant bullying from the other teens in town. Despite the underlying current of discontent, Logan teams up with an unlikely ally as they try to solve the mystery of the unexplained disappearances and deaths plaguing Snakebite since the arrival of her fathers.

The character building in this book is spot on and the plot keeps you guessing throughout. The journey of finding happiness, even in the worst of situations, struck a chord for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC of this in exchange for my honest opinion.

Gould’s debut is moody and atmospheric, just what I wanted from a mystery in a small Oregon town. A great read as we head into fall for some spooky vibes—but also, it may have made me cry, because Gould isn’t afraid to also tug at the heartstrings. I can’t wait to read what she writes next.

I received a digital advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

DNF due to life circumstances. Husband gravely ill, so I just don’t have time to get to all the books! Sorry!