Cover Image: After Dark with Roxie Clark

After Dark with Roxie Clark

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Member Reviews

This book was good. Will recommend to those kiddos looking for a bit of eerie, haunted, mystery-esque book. Definitely a young YA sleuth book.

My biggest drawback to this story was I didn’t really care for the main character. I think it would have been a higher rating for me if I liked the main character.

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Roxie Clark comes from a cursed family. Most of the women in her family die young. Her mother is no exception. Now, Roxie, a legal to drive high school student, plays into her history by reliving her heritage in the form of ghost tours. Roxie has experienced death and knows how to put on a good show. Not only has her mother passed, but her sister, Skylar’s boyfriend Collin was found murdered just a year ago. Roxie, in trying to help bring her sister out of her depression, gives her sister a present that Collin intended to present at graduation. But this present was not expected and sends Skylar and Roxie looking Collin’s killer.

This book wasn’t bad, it was a fun listen, but it was not the best of the bunch either. The author is trying to make Roxie a Manic Pixie Goth girl, but it comes off as to run of the mill. She is constantly worried about who she can trust, and when will the ghosts be avenged. It fits nicely within it’s genera, and many will find it an exciting read. And it is perfect for spooky season, or any other season.

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A year after Roxie’s sister’s boyfriend is found brutally murdered on the outskirts of town, an unexpected discovery sends Skylar on a frenetic search for the killer, heedless of who might get hurt in the process.

This is a fitting read for spooky season – a family curse? A ghost tour? A body left burned in a cornfield? But when you look beyond these trappings, After Dark with Roxie Clark is really a story about the relationship between siblings: Roxie and Skylar, Tristan and Colin.

I really liked the atmosphere of the story, which is properly Gothic. There’s plenty of eerie moments, and I found myself genuinely feeling that Tristan was unsafe at times (though of course being the love interest, I did not ever really believe he was the villain). And of course the mystery was compelling, yet at the same time the alarm bells kept going off that a solution would not be safe, and indeed the last third of the book moved with the heartless momentum of a Greek tragedy.

However, I did feel like there was some surprisingly foolish investigative decisions made for drama’s sake. Why are some characters instinctively trusted and others not when logic dictates it would be the other way round? Skylar’s immediate focus narrowing on Tristan didn’t make much sense considering the history between them and the lack of motive. The whole story would have wrapped up a lot faster with just a little more clear thinking.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book, which is narrated by Jordan Killam. She chose to interpret Roxie in a surprisingly dreamy manner that I really enjoyed, and I thought she did a good job of showing the characters’ emotions without going overboard.

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Roxie Clark is convinced she's cursed. Or her family is. All the Clark women face their untimely ends, and usually in a dramatic fashion. Which is what inspired her to start her ghost tour. She leads tourists and locals around her small town with stops based on her family history. Then her sister' boyfriend is murdered, and after a year of solitude, Skylar asks Roxie to help her solve the case. After all, if there's anything Roxie knows, its a good story.

This book was both amazing, and extremely poorly done. I couldn't put this down for the longest time while reading. I couldn't wait for a free minute to find out what happened next. The the final few chapters happened. And I was mad I wasted all that time. Everything from the defining characteristic of her sister's theory to the actual reveal was just poorly planned and absurd.

Skylar thinks her boyfriend's brother is the killer. Her evidence? The break up letter Roxie accidentally given her is written on paper he gifted to said brother. And therefor didn't have access to the paper before said birthday. Did you know you don't have access to gifts you plan to give other people until after you give it to them? According to Skylar that's a fact. The fact that the fancy stationary might have offered a sense of elevation and seriousness, so maybe he stole a sheet of it for something so important is apparently impossible in her mind. Then on top of this theory, Skylar gets mad at Roxie for not entertaining her bonkers theory and instead of going "hey maybe its time we include grandma and get Skylar the long overdue and much needed therapy she clearly needs after witnessing her boyfriend's mutilated corpse" no instead Roxie thinks "I guess the theory makes sense." Meanwhile ignoring that the boy's CONVICTED CRIMINAL FATHER was out on parol since before the death.

Then with the ending- It'll destroy Skylar if she knows the truth, so we should definitely mutilate his body and make it look like a grisly murder instead. Then the mental gymnastics involved in thinking Skylar being at peace with her boyfriend's death is so much better than not going to jail for a murder you didn't commit apparently. Just an absolute mess for the sake of a shocking twist.

But on top of all of that is the way I'm convinced Skylar never wanted to solve her boyfriend's murder, she wanted everyone to be as low and miserable as she was. Whereas if her family just got her mental help like she needed, we could have avoided all of this.

I gave the book 3 stars because at the end of the day, I was hooked until about the 80% point, just seriously disappointed by the ending. It felt like a good story suffered for the sake of shock and angst, and I don't appreciate that as a reader, and wish author's would knock it off.

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Slow as molasses, and not in the good, eerie Gothic kind of way.

I suppose the setup for this was fine, but the pacing was pretty painful for a book that isn’t slowed down for atmosphere or setting (of which it has close to none).

The whole ghost tour schtick might have been a good idea in theory, but it comes off as contrived and schlocky, and while Roxy seems like a nice girl, she’s not exactly what the book wants to convince you she is. Her role in this is just absurd, and though she’s clearly supposed to be “scary” and “goth” to some folks, she seems more like a girl who listened to a lot of Paramore in the aughts and then bought out a Hot Topic.

Skylar, grieving or not, is deeply unlikable and even worse, uninteresting. She’s difficult to sympathize with even though her backstory should, in theory, make her sympathetic.

The big reveal at the end is mostly a try-hard, eye roll of a plot twist. And <<VAGUE SPOILER COMING>> the “murder” is not a murder. Sigh.

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Loved Loved this book! I went in blind and didn't know what to expect ... I AM SO GLAD!!
Imagine a quirky lovely main character who never really learned to care what people think of her. She has her own style and confidence and GHOST TOUR!
Imagine a who done it that will leave you guessing!
Imagine thinking you know someone and then questioning everything you ever knew.
Imagine this book!

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Sorry it took so long for feedback. This one truly improves from the amazing audiobook.. Thank you to the publisher for the ALC.

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3.5 rounded up. I expected more, but still enjoyed the story. It definitely took me a little bit to figure it out, but, in the end I knew what was coming. I do love that they don't really give you an idea until the very end.

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This was my first book by Brooke Lauren Davis and I could not love it more! I went in not knowing what to expect or even really what the book was about and I was almost immediately hooked! I am for sure adding all her books to my TBR! I loved the relationship btwn Roxie and her best friend/maybe boyfriend. I also enjoyed that there was some healing of relationships in this book. I did NOT expect the twist of who killed Colin!

#AfterDarkwithRoxieClark
#NetGalley

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This character driven mystery was entertaining and heartbreaking. I enjoyed the main character Roxie the most with her fearless attitude and love of everything macabre. The final twist was literally jaw dropping. The story is fast paced and always left me intrigued and interested as the mystery unfolded. The narration added an extra layer of mystery and suspense to this atmospheric story. Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for my audiobook.

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Roxy Clark After Dark is a mystery, thriller, and teen drama. At times it seemed to tip more teen drama at times more mystery. I liked the main character, Roxy, her ghost obsession, and love for all things creepy.

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I liked this book rather more than I thought I would. It's more than just a murder mystery. It's an exploration of the ties between people, of the relationships we're born into and those we choose and the circumstances that strain relationships. The plot is not especially deep and some of the twists are predictable. But the characters are dynamic, deeply flawed and believable. Roxie is self-centered stubborn - in other words, a normal teenager. It may not hold up to repeat reads but for one off entertainment that leaves you with a couple of ideas to chew on, it's a solid choice.

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This was a fast-paced, well woven mystery. Even with the target audience being YA, it didn’t feel like it was written “down” for the demographic, which makes me very happy as a reader.

As someone who reads A LOT of thrillers and mysteries, I typically know the twist way before it comes, but this one definitely took me by surprise.

Loved the atmosphere of a small town and a main character who leans wholly into their interest with the darker side of life. I really enjoyed this one, and would absolutely recommend it to the young adults in your life.

Narration was spot on and I look forward to reading more from this author.

***Thank you to Dreamscape Media for providing me with the audiobook for free via NetGalley for an unbiased review.

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I enjoy the character development in this book and the world building but I felt like the plot itself wasn't exactly what I had expected and I wanted more from it

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The story definitely took a turn and I really loved the plot twist! The characters’s emotions felt real and it almost made me cry! Worth listening to it and of course reading it.

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This was such a fun read that had me guessing! I absolutely loved the true crime elements and thought that Roxie was such a fun character to get to know. Highly recommend for anyone who loves spooky YA content like Wednesday, Karen McManus books, or Holly Jackson.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

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This is a fun YA mystery/thriller. I think it could have been four stars, but I did guess the twist, and also I just found Skylar to be so unlikeable that it impacted my enjoyment of the story.

The narrator was great.

A fun read.

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Thank you so much for the advanced copy of this book. It definitely lived up to its hype. This author has become a must read.

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*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Really liked reading this to get ready for Halloween! would buy and reread!

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In this fantastic young adult thriller, Roxie puts her flair for the dramatic (and her penchant for all things gruesome) to profitable and glowingly-reviewed effect on her ghost tour, After Dark with Roxie Clark. Her tour spotlights the “Clark curse” that has plagued generations of women in her family. But after the murder of her sister’s boyfriend, Roxie is drawn into an investigation that leaves no one off the suspect list, threatening to flip Roxie’s world upside down yet again. This one is everything I love in a book: a genuinely cool lead character, a slow-burn romance, and some big twists. The audiobook production does a great job of pulling listeners into Roxie’s world and differentiating the characters’ unique voices. I was 🪝’ed from the first line … “It’s easy to believe in ghosts on a night like tonight, don’t you think?” 👻 🚌 💀

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