Sara is an adopted child who is only allowed out of the house to attend school, and rarely at that.
After having recovered from a mysterious illness she is still given doses of a strange medicine that her mother didn't get from a doctor. After her recovery she is somehow changed, and animals including her once beloved dog seem to hate her.

When 4 children arrive to spend a month in her home, Sara is told they are her cousins even though her parents have never spoken to her about any relatives in the past.
The children are unnaturally pale and are never to be fed. They burn easily in sunlight and are to subsist only on "medicine."

Jenny, the daughter of one of the school teachers, forms an uneasy alliance with the school bully Sunami to try to help Sara and find out what is really going on in her house.

This YA horror was a bit longer than it needed to be and because of that the story dragged at times.

Much of the dialogue was phonetically spelled and used odd word choices to reflect that English was not the first language of several characters and this did not work in favor of the book, but the story itself was quite creative and the cousins were creepy.

Sara’s mom and dad are dismayed when they receive a letter informing them that it is their turn to look after Sara’s cousins. But they’ll only be staying for a month. What could go wrong? More importantly, why could anything go wrong?

Gothic literature can be defined as writing that employs dark and picturesque scenery, startling and melodramatic narrative devices, and an overall atmosphere of exoticism, mystery, fear, and dread. Often, a Gothic novel or story will revolve around a large, ancient house that conceals a terrible secret or serves as the refuge of an especially frightening and threatening character.

https://www.thoughtco.com/gothic-literature-2207825
Sara’s “cousins” are downright creepy. Sara doesn’t know them and has been instructed that she is to never give them food of any kind. The only thing they “eat” is the horrid-smelling substance her mother gives them. Their breath is also rank. Could it be because of that foul-smelling substance that nourishes them, or is there some other reason their breath smells like death? These “cousins” don’t go to school, yet they are intelligent. They grow at an astounding rate that isn’t possible by human standards. What and who are these cousins?

Sara is pretty much a loner, but she does have some friends. Red-haired Jenny has moved to Hawaii from California with her parents, and her mom is a teacher. Sunami is Hawaiian. When Sara and her friends discover who and what her mysterious cousins are, they realize that all are in danger and attempt to warn everyone.

The Curse of Sara Douroux takes place in picturesque Hawaii. But the beautiful scenery turns dark and spooky when there are violent storms. The characters are well-developed, and secrets abound. The dialogue of some of the characters contains a lot of Hawaiian slang, but what else can you expect when the characters are Hawaiian? The author has provided notes at the end of the book that translates the Hawaiian slang as well as some French that is used.

Oh boy - suspenseful, horror, mystery - all of the ingredients that make this such a great book.

The Curse of Sara Douroux is the first I have read from this author and hope there will be more to come.

Doesn't elicit any fear and is incredibly far-fetched. This book could do with a complete re-write. Very disappointed as I was looking forward to the premise of this one.

I'm not sure what to think of this book. I typically love YA horrors but this one seemed to drag on and on and didn't flow very well.

I did finish the book because I wanted answers and to know how it ended but I didn't come away from it feeling satisfied or like it was a phenomenal reads.

The Curse of Sara Douroux is a twisted tale that had me searching for extra free time to read more. Despite the predictability denoted by other reviewers, I was completely in the dark as to the true identity and nature of the mysterious characters. The storyline gets away from the writer at times, and there are characters and scenes that don't seem to have any relevance plot, and I found myself googling translations for the Hawaiian slang used in some of the dialogues, but none of these things were enough to have me give up on the book, which will be a great addition to the YA Horror genre.

Overall, I appreciated the original plot and unique location setting. However, the plot suffered from an unclear monster/foe and an overabundance of side characters which ultimately dragged the book into unmemorable territory.

Unclear monster.
With the arrival of Sara’s “cousins” I was a bit confused. They were strange and otherworldly, but I wasn’t moved by them. The legend pieced together over the course of the book, but dragged through pivotal moments. Perhaps the cousins could arrive throughout the book at different moments to give them room to develop?

Too many characters.
As previous reviewers mentioned, the character map was difficult to follow. Names were difficult to remember, their relationships were shallow and didn’t add much to the story and I found myself continually skipping over names and character plots to get to the ending.

Original plot.
I praise the author and the publisher for taking a chance on an original plot with diverse characters, we need more books with these components! However, I think this book missed the mark on quality for me.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for this advanced copy. This was an interesting read, touches of mythology and paranormal. Basically a new take on a vampire tale. Good suspense and writing. I will be recommending this book to those teens who enjoy a dark tale.

I wanted to like this book and did enjoy it up to a point but then things started dragging and I began to loose interest as so many characters were introduced making it hard to keep track of who was who and how they were related to one another.

The story did have a creepy feel to it which was entertaining for a while, unfortunately this was not enough to maintain my enjoyment much past the middle of the book. The dialogue between characters also became an annoyance at times.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an advance copy of this title in exchange for an unbiased review.

I felt oddly claustrophobic reading this, or maybe just trapped in a larger sense of the word. Good gothic young adult tales like this are really hard to find.

Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgally for review purposes.


Ya know I applaud an original concept because this, to me, was completely original. I don't know if all of it 'worked' but I'd rather someone go all out and try then have one book that's like a billion others ! :)


It was a little hard for me to get into it. I don't know if it was the pacing or the way the dialogue was written, but it was just a little difficult for me. Luckily the mystery of the cousins element was enough for me to push on.


I wasn't crazy about it towards the end, but again, it was original and new and I could see good things coming from this author.

An engrossing and fascinating paranormal YA novel with significant twists, THE CURSE OF SARA DOUROUX kept me riveted throughout. By turns multicurally diverse, historically referent, and wide-ranging in mythology, this novel I would rate in both supernatural and paranormal categories, and at the upper end of the YA range due to significant levels of violence, adolescent pregnancies, and substance addiction.

I tried so much to like this book but it's all over the place and has too many perspectives. And the way some of the characters talked it was sometimes hard to follow what exactly they were trying to say.

I loved the premise of this book and found the beginning genuinely creepy. I wanted to know what the truth was with Sara and her cousins. But I found it lost its way - it was confused and confusing and needed a good edit.

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher/author for this ARC for my honest review.


I don’t have too much to say about this book. At times it was a bit chaotic. Too many characters that didn’t really seem to serve a purpose. There were times that some dialogue or things said didn’t really seem to tie in. It’s a unique and good storyline, and it really had potential. Just missing something.....

The starting to mid of the book was engaging. In fact the start drew me in quickly. You immediately learn that Sara was wrought with a terrible sickness, and that illness was out of the ordinary.

The suspense was entertaining, and it build up with every turn of the chapter. I was stuck to the book, eyes running through page by page. Who are the four children? Who is Sara? Though the frequent use of French and Hawaiian left me frustrated, I was enamoured by the mysterious identity of these 5 characters.

As I read on, the characters became even more confusing. One moment Sara was first in line of the high servants, and the next moment she is a Master. Who is she really? Is Samuel the only fatalist among the four cousins? If so and Carmilla and Michael were supposed to stop fatalists, why were they hidden together? Why were they even hidden in the first place? The background as to why the 5 of them are in this predicament was not explained well.

Was there a need to bring in so many side characters? Kawika, ikaida, etc. They play negligible roles in the book and only served to clutter the storyline.

The ending was rushed. A brief background of the vampires/demons were inserted hastily towards the end. I felt that the story could be more organised.

Overall, it had good potential and entertainment quality could have almost been on par with Stoker’s Dracul. But the organization of the book and the culmination was sub par and could have been done better.

This was a surprising book, I was not expecting it to be so interesting. Others have mentioned that they did not like the use of Hawaiian slang but I actually felt that it added to the character development and it was not hard to understand. I wish we could find out more about the history of some of the other characters but I suppose that would have made the book quite a bit longer.

This book scared me so much I've had to sit it aside and watch cartoons to be able to sleep. If you like horror you'll love this book. I don't give spoilers if I'm able to avoid it...and so I'll just say beware of things that go bump in your mind...because the night is full of them. Do not read alone or in the dark.

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to review this book.

I don’t know exactly what I was expecting this book to be, but it was far different than I had anticipated. I found it to be long and, at times, confusing. I don’t want to spoil the story for anyone, but the tale of what the “cousins” are within the creature world is not explained to my satisfaction. The author leaves a great deal up to interpretation, and without background knowledge, this leaves the reader confused and frustrated.

Overall, 3 stars because the premise is good, but I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I wanted to.

Slow in the beginning but picked up and loved every suspenseful second ! Was a little hard to get through the first part because if a book doesn’t catch my attention right away I tend to fade off into something else but pushed through it and found it to be an enjoyable novel after all !