Atmospheric and emotional. This magical debut deals with friendship, loss and grief and explored the complicated emotions of the three girls so beautifully.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for giving me access to the advanced copy of this book to read.

At its heart, this book is about three young girls on the cusp of great changes in their life, and having to deal with that alongside of grief and the ultimate lesson in mortality. The girls use a combination of the magic handed down to them from the generations that came before them and their own strength and tenacity to navigate issues like relationships, discrimination, guilt, drug use and abuse, and the overall complex and yet wonderful experience of growing up Brown and Black in Rhode Island.

“Deep in Providence” is a magical story featuring the POVs of three friends who just lost one of their friends. This book explores grief, but also other important topics like abortions and alcoholism. It’s devastatingly beautiful.

I loved the story, the world building and meeting the different characters. I felt completely immersed in the story and couldn't stop reading it.

This book is raw and gripping and emotional, and pulled so many feelings out of me while I was reading that the time seemed to just fly by. DEEP IN PROVIDENCE is a beautifully written, haunting debut about three teenage girls, Milliani, Natalie, and Inez, and how they deal with grief when their best friend Jasmine passes away.

Jasmine dies in a car accident, but the girls aren't ready to let her go. The four of them have been practicing magic for a while now, spurred on by Milliani, who has been taught magic by her Filipino grandpa. But after Jasmine dies, the girls make a pact to try their biggest spell yet, bringing Jasmine back from the dead. But magic always comes with a cost, and the magic the three of them work starts to alter their lives.

This is an amazing debut that deals with so many real world problems: addiction, loss, grief, teen pregnancy, immigration...etc., and it does it all while also exploring supernatural events that are at times, genuinely chilling. I loved how this book manages to portray magic as a subtle, but undeniable force, and there is a lot here that will stay with me for a long time.

I have no words to describe how achingly beautiful this book is. These girls creep into your skin and by the time you turn the last page, you feel like you're leaving very dear friends. I loved how present Jas was in her friend group, even though she was gone. Their memories and love for her kept her presence strong, and I found myself mourning her as well. These girls go through a lot of extremely difficult things and I think the author handled these situations well.

I truly feel like a piece of me is missing, leaving these characters behind, and I love it when books do that. Definitely looking forward to what Riss M. Nielson writes next.

This book was truly an amazing ride! To say this was her first book, this had me on the edge of my seat! The true power of friendship is all through this book! Can't wait to read more of this author

This was an excellent debut. I was really engaged for the first 75% of the book. After this however I found it difficult to keep everyone and their relationships organized in my head even with writing out a chart. This is a really powerful story about grief and friendship. I love the elements of Filipino magic and appreciate the care given to complicated family relationships. There was maybe a bit too much going on within the context of one book but overall really great and I cant wait to read her next book!

i received a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, this book was a definite hit for me it explored the power of friendship, i loved that every character was in the spotlight, this book gave me goosebumps from the very first sentence, it just draws you in. It’s queer, it’s magical, it’s inclusive and a perfect read.

This is one of the most beautiful and powerful contemporary fantasies I've ever read, with poignant themes of love, loss, and friendship that often hit me like a gut punch with their authenticity.

The prose are gorgeous and haunting, and the fantastical problems of the characters are coupled meaningfully with genuine conflicts with high stakes that real teens have to deal with.

I would recommend DIP to anyone struggling with grief. It's such a touching and heartbreaking story, but ultimately, one filled with hope too. I'm definitely going to be on the lookout for this author's next work.

Loved this book!! Thoughtful, fleshed out characters. Loved the representation. Dialogue was realistic for teens today.

Miliani, Inez, Natalie and Jasmine are best friends living in Providence, Rhode Island. When Jasmine is suddenly killed by a drunk driver, the remaining girls turn to magic to bring her spirit back.

The story is told in alternating POVs of Natalie, Inez and Milani, which was a great way to learn more about the three girls and their relationships with each other and Jasmine. I enjoyed how each of the girls were not only dealing with the grief of losing their friend, but they also had their own personal struggles as well. I did feel at times that the book began to drag, and parts could have been taken out to keep the plot moving. It does deal with some difficult topics such as drug abuse, addiction and overdose, sexual assault, abortion and a miscarriage, so be aware of that going in!

Beautiful, aching, and haunting, Deep in Providence is a stunning exploration of loss. It was impossible not to fall in love and feel for the main characters as they fought to bring their best friend back. The fraught relationships and character growth were wonderfully examined and the relevancy of the topics handled added such an important element. I especially loved the exploration of reproductive choice, which I rarely see in young adult. The magic system was mesmerizing, the prose came alive, and the story itself lingered long after the pages have been turned. Neilson is such a talent, and I will absolutely be buying every one of this author's future books.

The PERFECT book for Cancer Season doesn't exi...
🌊🦀🪸♋️🫧🌙

DEEP IN PROVIDENCE BY Riss M. Neilson is actually a perfect read from the cover art to the content of the story - I, a fellow Cancerian. A spellbinding young adult fantasy debut following three best friends who turn to magic when they're haunted by a friend's death...and perhaps her spirit.

This book was very therapeutic for me. The story follows three young women healing and I feel like it also healed me too. I read this when I was super sad and by the end of reading this one, it literally cured me of my sadness.

This was so hauntingly beautiful with the atmospheric proses and the raw emotions the author was able to encapsulate. I adored the sisterhood bond between friends, the different family dynamics, the whimsical and eeriness side of magic, and the outstanding amount of representation.

If you love any witchy media like The Craft, Charmed, or Practical Magic I highly recommend this one! I’m certainly going to pick up a physical copy soon!

My Rating | Their Flowers
10 🥀 out of 10 🥀

This book hooked me from the first page. Although multi-POV, the girls' voices and lives were so distinct, and the intimate look into their feelings, hopes, heartbreaks, and desires was so visceral in the best of ways. Without any spoilers, this story was a breathless feast from start to finish. Riss M. Neilson is an awesome debut to watch out for, and I can't wait for her next book!

One of my favorite books of 2022!! Riss M. Neilson weaves a magical story of sisterhood and friendship. This book really captures what it's like to be a teenage girl. I loved all three main characters'' perspectives. Also, Riss M. Neilson is Filipino and so is one of the mc's!!

I have tried to listen to this audiobook several times, and the narrators just do not work. There's issues with volume levels because of whispering, and since this story is told from multiple POVs but with ONE narrator, it makes it incredibly difficult to follow along to.

I was sucked into this story on the first chapter. There are so many heartwrenching moments that you just want to step into the book and hug the characters. We are following 3 best friends Miliani, Inez, and Natalie as they are dealing with the death of one of their other best friends. Miliani asks her friends to help bring Jasmine back from the dead. Alohough the main plot of the book is about them trying to bring their best friend back, it also has so many interesting side stories that makes you want more of every single story line. Sometimes I find it hard to keep up when there are so many points of view, but this book was so well done it was easy to keep it separate. I would 100% recommend this book to someone.

3.5 stars

This was a beautifully written story told from the point of view of 3 best friends, Miliani, Inez, and Natalie, after the death of the 4th member (Jasmine) of their group. In their grief, they turn to the magic that some of them had learned from their family in hopes of bringing back their dead friend's spirit. There were moments when reality blended with dreams (waking or otherwise) and I wasn't always so sure what was happening. What I loved was that although the story was told from different perspectives, the three voices are quite distinct and I never had trouble making the switch. As you learn pretty quickly, Miliani, Inez, and Natalie are best friends, but they (and Jasmine) grew up very differently and their reasons for working with magic are very different from each other.

My one complaint about this book, which is why I think 3.5 stars is a good rating:

What I did not like as much was Miliani's deception of her friends (and her mom, but it was more her friends that bugged me) and proceeding without really considering Darleny at all. It actually made me feel a lot of sympathy for Darleny, even when she was deliberately rude to Miliani and her friends.

Without this piece, I think I would have liked this story more. The characters were very well-written and as you follow the story and learn more about each of the girls and their families, their choices and feelings make a lot of sense. Even though Leanne was more of a supporting character, her story was just as important as Natalie's and I like that they normalized what she did to make ends meet AND that her partner was on board with it. And while Dev and Harriet were not prominent in the story, you could see how important they were to the development of the girls, even as grumpy as Harriet seemed to be at the beginning. Truly there was more to like about this than to dislike which is why I decided to round up to 4 stars. It helped that Miliani finally came clean and it helped her come to terms with her grief; it helped all of them. I think I was also more willing to forgive because I understood from the ending that deep grief can sometimes make you consider actions you would never consider otherwise.

One other comment--the pacing is on the slow side, and at 480 pages, it may seem a bit daunting for readers, but the pacing fits the storyline. These girls are absolutely grieving and there are moments when you feel as they feel--that their pain will never end. As teenagers that feeling is probably intensified and it also doesn't help that many of the adults in the story are just as messed up. It gave me a glimpse of what it might be like to grow up black and brown in Rhode Island. There are so few books set in that area of the country, so that was definitely one of the things that caught my eye.

Content warnings include drug addiction, drug overdose, discussions about abortion, incarceration for assault, discrimination, and abuse.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.