This was the strangest story. It’s told by multiple characters which I found confusing at times. It has a bit of a supernatural feel to it. It doesn’t play out like I was expecting.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the early copy

“Lark’s fingertips paused inches above the surface of the water, far above the lost necklace. It called to her in a low, coaxing voice from below. But she somehow knew, if she dove, if her head went below the water’s surface, even for a moment, she’d never come up again.”

ARC Review
3.5 Stars

I want to start this review by saying that will I did enjoy this book, it's a book that took me a while to finish. It's not a book for everyone. If you like a slow-paced book and more than anything an ambiguous atmosphere for the book, then yea jump right in, if when it comes to thrillers you are more of a psychological than horror this might also be a great fit. There is some romance there and it's top-tier the best of tropes!

I think that the writing style is beautiful but it slows the story by a lot, there were a lot of unnecessary things and moments that felt like they stagger the plot and made it a lot more complicated than it needed to be.

I think that the main idea of the book is brilliant and the characters are lovely and so easy to love. The whole idea of this secret in a town that everyone kinda knows about but it's also just ghost stories that its part of the culture was great! I think that the ambiance was there, and the plot was so good but there were a lot of misses too when it came to the delivery. Like unnecessary POVs from both Bolt and Lark, not enough backstory of the town, and not enough time to create the lore of everything.

I did love how the characters interacted but there was an opportunity to make them closer and developed a relationship between them.

My main issue now, was that for the most part, Cassie and June really took the stage during the majority of the book, even tho Lark had a fantastic and fascinating part of the stories foundations, she had one of the strongest connections to the mystery and one of the biggest tools to solve it yet I feel like we barely saw her, I feel like we barely learn stuff about her and never really got one on one with her because she became a plot device for June's story, I know that I complained we got unnecessary POVS from lark but like I said they could have easily been June or Cassie povs and it would have helped move the story and the plot instead of making it feel staged. Then Bolt was introduced as one of the POV characters but with him was like whenever he was there, we were there to chill with him, and the plot barely advanced, there was a lot of cool stuff being set in his POV but it was never used or concluded and instead, a lot of his POVs felt unnecessary

SPOILERS

Things I loved and saved the book in my opinion was how well developed and what a wonderful character Cassie was, she never felt short, she was such a great character to follow around but sadly I felt like I never had enough of her. I wasn't expecting a romance at all in this book but I loved it! She and Mitch had the loveliest romance story and it had my absolute favorite tropes of all time!!! the romance and Cassie were really the only things keeping me interested in this book. I am the happiest and I teared up when Cassie went into the water and she had her happy ending with Mitch.

The plot twist or resolution of the story was pretty good. It really took me by surprise and made the book a lot better in my opinion. I felt like everything we saw made sense and it really did make the three girls' story connect.

I wish we had seen more about Dayle and what went down there and I wished we had seen more of Lark and her telescopes. I wish we had seen more of the past of the town and more flashbacks.

Multiple voices tell this tale of a town that was submerged in the 1950s. Lake Prosper is a mysterious dreadful place of secrets but three young women- Cassie, Lark, and June find themselves looking for answers when a locked box is found, There's magical realism, a touch of the gothic, and perhaps a bit too much going on but it's an interesting entry into the summer reading pile. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC.

Read it if you like:
•Mystery & Suspense
•Magical Realism
•Multiple POVs
•Secrets & History
•Southern Gothic Elements
•Romance ( A hint of romance but not gothic)
•LGBTQIAP

The author’s writing is exquisite. The book is mysterious, secretive, haunting and evocative. The town of Prosper is inspired by Buckville, Arkansas, which was flooded in the 1950s by the Blakely Mountain Dam and is now beneath Lake Ouachita.

In 1937, Prosper was a perfect town before yellow fever gripped everyone and drowned the town with their secrets and history too. Prosper is Cassie’s childhood home but she is harbouring a perilous secret as she avoids going near lake, Cassie’s father avoids coming to town, June feels an inevitable connection with the lake and ghosts of past and haunting visions have gripped Lark. When Cassie’s mom visits in Summer, she learns more about her Grandad. Cassie loved her Grandad and she reminisces her childhood memories. And everyone has secrets in the family.

But after decades, something is brewing in the lake and strange things are happening like water is turning red, and mysterious locked box gets pulled up from the depth of water. Bound together in the complex web of history, mystery, secrets, haunting, ghostly imprints and ruins of the lost town, they must get to the bottom of the mystery and find their way out of it before darkness and secrets grips them and drowns them too like it did decades ago.

It’s about friendship, love, childhood memories, legacy left behind, solving the unsolved mystery and retrieving the lost town.


Thank you Netgalley, Author and Publisher.

The premise of this book sounded amazing, and there were some great ideas in it. Unfortunately, they were not enough for me.

First of all, the main plotline was not strong enough to keep me hooked. It was not clear for a very long time what it was, there were no main conflicts to induce tension and the characters were not strong enough for me to say: ok, this is character-driven and I don't need anything else from it.

I love having multiple narrators when they add something to the story. In this book, we had at least 4 and none of them was developed enough, and by the time I reached the ending I wasn't able to describe them, I was still not sure what defined them and what their motivations and fears were.

I see this is labeled as Fantasy but it's nowhere close. I would say it is at most Magical Realism.

The horror elements were not strong either. They had a lot of potential but they were underutilized. I was reading some scenes that I knew should be full of tension and disturbing but were actually very bland. The atmosphere didn't help. There were some parts in the book that were amazing (like a scene close to the end in which 2 of the main characters are running from somebody in a forest), however, I didn't get an overall sense of tension from this read or any feelings about the place, the people and the history surrounding them.

The ending was, in my opinion, very well written and it was extremely emotional and it's why I gave this 3 stars and not less.

I don't know what I expected of this book, but it was definitely not what it turned out to be! A lot of strange things happen in this story and quite some scenes had me turn the lights back on when I read late at night in bed. The story takes some time to pick up, but when it finally does it's worth the wait!

After the yellow fever breaks out in old Prosper, the town is mysteriously flooded after a particularly heavy storm, drowning everything and everyone on site. Centuries later, Prosper is a rebuilt town right beside the lake, a small and idyllic place - that is, until strange things start to happen again. Cassie, Lark and June are forced to face not only their own issues, but uncover the mysteries threatening to break through the surface of the lake.

I really enjoyed this story and its many spooky layers - at times it wasn't clear whether or not someone was actually present or just a supernatural appearance. My favourite part beside the mystery about what happened to old Prosper and its residents was the relationship between the two sapphic characters! Especially their first encounter had me kicking my feet in the air. I also really enjoyed reading about the paranormal aspects of this book and that there were so many different ones present. You really get a feel for the characters and how the lake impacts all of them individually, be it getting scared to their bones or loosing their minds. As I said, the book and plot take some time to develop and fully immerse the reader into the story and I feel like the writing style may have something to do with it. In some parts it just feels too drawn out and it dragged a bit. All in all, I really enjoyed this story!

Book Name: Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves
Author: Quinn Connor

ARC
Thank you to SOURCEBOOKS Landmark and NetGalley for an ARC of Quinn Connor’s Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves

Stars: 4.5
Spice: 1.75

Standalone
Fast Paced
Plot-Centric
Multi POV
Contemporary - Esque Ghost Story
Similar to Mexican Gothic

- Topics
- Dark Southern Summer Gothic
- Grief & Tragedy
- Consequences of the Past
- Family Complexities
- Family Secrets
- Sapphic Representation in 2/3 MC’s
- Thoughts.
- The Author's Note is poignant and addresses the social issues found within the book I appreciate the publisher putting this at the front- lending a lens through which to view the novel
- Evocative Use of Language
- Atmospheric
- Creepy and Captivating
- Lingering Storyline
- Good Entry Level Horror Book
- THIS IS NOT A GOTHIC ROMANCE

I was really intrigued by the synopsis of this book and the author’s intro. Unfortunately, the story itself fell a bit flat and seemed disjointed, in my opinion.

I really enjoyed the underlying story with Catfish and Cassie’s family ties to the town. I think there was too much going on though with other elements - the telescopes, Rig and his father, and June’s flowers - that didn’t seem intrinsically tied to the Catfish storyline. Even the fireworks seller didn’t seem to be a necessary storyline and I had trouble tying it all together.

It would be interesting to hear from the author how those different elements were tied to the old town Prosper, so if they were explained a bit more I would have liked it better.

This book was such a disappointment. There were multiple perspectives, but they were so similar that it was nearly impossible to tell any of them apart and keep track of or care about their individual stories.

Three young women are at the center of this story which takes place on the not so fancy side of Lake Prosper. I loved the family connections in this book and "finding one's roots". I could imagine the memories of summer as the writer's descriptions felt they were her own. There was elements of magical realism with some horror mixed in to give a compelling read. I enjoyed the book but do wish it had tied up more loose ends. I wanted to know a bit more as to why this all happened and why specific people were affected. Thank you Netgalley.

As I read this book I could feel the summer heat on my skin and hear the cicadas sing. The descriptions are poetic and rich.
Throughout the story there is foreboding and a chill in that summer air. The plot reads like a ghost story by exploring the past and how it can haunt the present.
The characters all had issues with their parents and I liked how the dynamics were explored.
I felt the different point of views were good as so much could be explored but I would have liked more focus on one character for this type of book.
Thank you to NetGallery for the E-ARC, this review is voluntary and my own opinions.

I really wanted to love Cicadas sing of summer graves: the premise was really promising, the book cover is stunning, the magical realism is definitely there, but it didn’t live up to the expectation. The pace was really slow for the first half of the book and then suddenly picks up speed for the second half, so much so that the last chapters feel very rushed. The writing is elaborate and poetic, beautiful yet difficult for a non native English speaker like me. The multiple POVs were really hard to follow, if it wasn’t for the names of the characters appearing during the narration it would have been impossible to tell them apart.
The fact that the magical realism is in a contemporary setting makes the book more interesting, creating imagery out of a fever dream and an eerie and mysterious atmosphere that looms over the inhabitants of Prosper.
Thank you Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange of an honest review.

Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves is a book that, for me, had promise but didn’t live up to it. It’s a book that didn’t seem able to land on what genre it wanted to be — contemporary, fabulism, outright fantasy, or paranormal — so became a mishmash of them all, and not in a good way.

It’s hard to say what exactly drives the plot, since for much of it, there doesn’t seem to be anything of one. Let’s say, for now, a haunting does. A haunting and a trauma. Related, perhaps, but not in a way that’s clear. You would think that this book might play into that confusion, to make you wonder what exactly is real. Is this character really haunted? Or is there something else going on that we don’t know about, because of an unreliable narrator aspect? However, the confusion here simply seems a product of the writing and story in general. It doesn’t know what genre it wants to be, so neither do we have any sense of the framework by which to read this by.

It doesn’t help, though, the random flower magic that’s inexplicably thrown in for? Reasons unknown! Until, lo and behold, it proves useful right at the end. This is partly why I ask exactly the genre it’s supposed to be, because no one in the town bats an eyelid at this sudden magical power showing up. But we’re also told that no one believes Cassie when she talks about the lake being haunted. It’s this kind of pick-and-choose when it comes to the fabulist aspects that, in part, makes it such a frustrating book.

The other aspect of that comes to the lack of feeling I had around it. Perhaps this relates too to the flowery prose it uses, such that you’re held at a distance from the actual narrative and you don’t feel what you need to. It doesn’t evoke the heat of a Southern summer, there’s no creeping sense of unease as the haunting slips into view (in fact, I’m not even sure the haunting even registers until the final third of the book. Perhaps, but only in some minor aspects). You don’t feel at all like you’re being haunted yourself. The idea of the ghost town beneath the dam could, I think, have played a bigger role as well.

On top of this, the three (occasionally four) POVs barely felt distinct from one another. At times, I couldn’t tell whose it was, and was only saved by the fact that it was in third person so the name of the POV character popped up every so often. Other than that, it basically wasn’t possible to tell them apart. They all bled into one, in a way that was much smoother than the book’s attempt to merge four separate genres. Unfortunately.

So, while this book had a lot of promise, it ultimately fell short. Perhaps this is a me problem, though (as ever). I have no doubt it’ll find its readership, but that just didn’t include me.

I’m really sad to be giving this such a low rating. The premise was so good. I love the magical realism/Gothic atmosphere but, unfortunately, there wasn’t really anything else to engage me personally. I found it to be really slow. The multiple POV’s were also kind of confusing because they weren’t labelled and the voices blurred into the same voice. I think a lot of people would love this, though, if you like slow, atmospheric books then this one is definitely for you. I’m open to giving more from this author a try, I’d be interested to see if their other books work for me.

"Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves" is a story about love, family and generational trauma but also trying to find one‘s place in this world and handling grief - of the loss of a loved one, a past that cannot be changed or a chance you never took. It is packed with lots of supernatural elements and I did not know where the story was going. It sure starts out slow but it has such a dreamy and mysterious atmosphere which is underlined by some of the most beautiful prose I have ever read! I liked the different P.O.V and how every character is characterised by a certain kindness even while they are fighting their own battles. If Lana del Rey's Summertime Sadness were a book, it would be this one!✨

This was a slow read for me. I struggled to finish it. I really couldn’t get into the story or the characters. I felt like there was just so much going on. Thank you Quinn, Sourcebooks Landmark, and Netgalley for the ARC!

Somewhere, I read a writer talking about writing scary scenes. They said that the fear comes from what you don't say, what isn't written on the page. And that really sums up this book. Cicadas is a ghost story that isn't over done. It is horror without being gruesome (except in one scene.) It is psychological and physical. I really enjoyed it and have already told everyone I know about it.

This was a slow but intense read. I loved the pacing of the story, where tension crept in slowly but steady and was a constant background noise, but not all over the place. Therefore, the balanced creepy scenes had enough space to make an impression. Also, the author took his time to build strong and recognizable characters and get readers connected to and care for them.
I was especially curious about the tragic history the books is based on: a whole town and lots of its people were drowned by a flood. While this is not a new starting point for a book, the author built a very original and haunting plot around it. Instead of making this just another ghost story, the focus was on the living characters, the impact events have on their lives and how they grow stronger because of it.

Three young women. One sees ghosts. One has visions. One has flowers growing out of her head. These young women bear testament to a disaster decades before their births when Yellow Fever and torrential rains caused the dam to break destroying all in its path, leaving the town and its inhabitants underneath a watery grave.
The messages being heard or seen from Cassie, Lark, and June play heavily into the summer by the lake. The ghosts of the town have been awakened. Is history bound to be repeated in the town of Prosper?
I had a hard time trying to decide if this was a historical fiction with a message, a fantasy, or magical realism. It was a mixed message for me and a little too magical to pick up the message of displacement of the poor and disenfranchised; another bad chapter in American History of forcing people out of their homes in the name of progress. I felt like it needed a sharper focus as there was a lot going on to distract the reader.

Thank you to Sourcebooks for an early copy. Opinions are my own.

This was probably 2.5 rounded up. While I was really intrigued by the premise of this one, and really wanted to like it, the execution didn't quite live up to my hopes. There were multiple narrators whose voices didn't feel sufficiently well-differentiated, it didn't really hold my attention, and some of it just felt like it needed more polish – almost like it was a solid first draft which needed some editing.

The atmosphere was good, though, and the plot was intriguing; the whole concept of the drowned town was fascinating, and I liked the sort of magical realism/horror vibes that the book had going on – it just didn't *quite* get there for me, unfortunately.

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the ARC!