With her thrilling debut, Gould offers a reader everything a good book needs to have: relatable characters that you can root for, realistic romances and family dynamics and a well-written plot likely to immerse the reader direcrly into the book's world.

Creepy? Check. Sinister? Check. LGBTQ+ representation? Check. Mystery? Check. Paranormal? Check, check, check! A beautiful mesh of small town closed minds, family, love and the things that grow from the festering dark side of humanity.

Logan and her dads are in Snakebit, their old home, searching for the next setting for their paranormal ghost hunting show. This small town, closed off to change and to all things they deem different, give the trio a not so warm welcome back home. When Logan connects with local town girl, Ashley, and they start unraveling the secrets behind the mysterious disappearances of local kids, things start getting creepy.

What I really loved most about this book was the theme of loneliness, self hate and personal isolation. It played really well into the plot and makes you see a deeper side to the storyline. The hate acts against sexual identity was sadly all too real and heart breaking. I liked seeing how Gould ties this all together adding another layer to the overall twist towards the end.

The Dead and the Dark has an excellent layer of paranormal darkness shrouding the characters and plot. The narration fit Logan expertly. I liked the voice changes for her dads, Brandon and Alejo. I would've enjoyed a little more fluctuation for the climactic scenes by the end but still found myself unable to stop listening. The emotional scenes played out well too.

I was enamored and engrossed in the character outcomes, the connections and the mystery stalking this town. Definitely a young adult paranormal read I'd recommend for the upcoming fall season. Content mention for homophobia.

Thank you Wednesday Books and MacMillan Audio for the opportunity to listen to and read this novel in exchange for an honest review! True rating 4.5/5.

I can’t believe this creepy and mind-blowing story is actually Courtney Gould’s debut novel! I really felt as though I was transported to Snakebite, Oregon and I was experiencing everything firsthand—hearing the soft and menacing whispers in the dark and feeling the spooky vibrations that had the whole town unsettled. The Dead and The Dark is a chilling and magnificent literary masterpiece because Courtney Gould created a compelling horror story that has a lot of intricate layers and long-held secrets. I also loved how the author used Logan, Ashley and the Dark’s points of view in the story because this created the right amount of tension and build up to the sinister events that were set to take place in Snakebite. By the way, this cover is absolutely gorgeous and I fell in love with it at first glance!

Logan Ortiz-Woodley and Ashley Barton are the sapphic ghost hunting duo I have always wanted to read about! At first, they didn’t want to have anything to do with each other but they eventually warmed up to each other when they teamed up to find out who was responsible for the disappearances and murders in the close-knit community and they slowly but surely began to fall in love. I will always have a special place in my heart for Logan and Ashley because they are flawed, lovable and lonely young women who are just trying to find a place for themselves in a world that despises anyone who dares to be themselves and love who their hearts truly desire.

Book Review: The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

The Dead and the Dark is a young adult contemporary horror novel about a teenage girl who returns her parent’s tiny isolated Oregon town of their childhood only to find her entire family outcasts and under suspicion.

Logan is dragged back to her father’s hometown of rural Snakebite, Oregon after they left to chase ghosts on their reality tv show a decade prior. She knows very little about their lives growing up and has a distant relationship with her father Brandon. But she realizes very quickly that something isn’t right in Snakebite as her little family of three is immediately accused of being the source of strange weather, a teenage boy’s disappearance and eventually murders. Her only friend in the middle of the turmoil and paranormal sightings is the golden girl of Snakebite, Ashley. In order to clear the names of her family and find Ashley’s missing boyfriend they will have to work together to find the source of the darkness that haunts Snakebite.

This is a twisty and dark story that is very fast paced and engaging. I think readers that are drawn to paranormal thrillers will love this new novel that combines paranormal reality tv shows, family drama, LGBQT issues, creepy small towns, romance and dark spirits.

4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a very fast paste story with LOTS of details and some backstories. It was a good book and I enjoyed all the mysteries and thrillers of it. I like that the story wasn't predictable and the mystery was kept till the end.

I found the story fell kinda flat at some points but picked up pretty quick. It just keeps you on the edge of your seat. Wanting more and needing to know what happens next. The ending was pretty cool and shocking but it was a good ending. I also like the small-town feel to it, it's perfect for this kind of story. It certainly has that creepy feel to it.

This is my first time reading a book from the author and I really enjoyed it.

*Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this book.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
***
The Dead and the Dark is a debut book by Courtney Gould.
This book was so, so good.
Logan’s dads, Alejo and Brandon, are supernatural investigators and all Logan can really remember of her childhood is being on the road all the time, not settling with them, and now she’s recently graduated high school and she’s just searching for a place to call home. Especially after the events of Tulsa and her relationship with Brandon is even more frayed than ever. When Brandon goes back to his and Alejo’s hometown, Snakebite, Oregon, and Logan and her dad follow months after him she is convinced this is going to be her last hurrah with her dad’s before she finally looks for the elusive home she’s always wanted, even if it doesn’t include them.
When they arrive though Snakebite is not what she imagined for a place where her dad’s grew up. The place is insidious and bleak. It’s also a powder keg waiting to explode because not long after Brandon arrived the town’s teen golden boy Tristan disappeared and the townies are convinced Brandon had something to do with it. Logan knows there is something strange about Brandon, secrets he and Alejo have kept from her but surely it’s not something that dark.
Meanwhile Tristan’s girlfriend Ashley is convinced Tristan is still out there and despite how long he’s been missing she’s convinced she will be the one to find him and bring him home to their beloved town. Snakebite may not be the haven she’s built it up to be in her head though, the town carries secrets and the closer Ashley grows to Logan the more questions she has,
***
This story was so dark and bleak and beautiful. Logan’s journey to find something for herself, to not be alone. Ashley’s journey for more, to be fulfilled. Entwine those two and a supernatural mystery behind that and you got a rock solid winner.
I loved Logan, she’s so tired of trying that she’s just ready to move on and maybe try somewhere where she has a better chance but also she’s not really ready to just let go just yet because this is her dad and she wants to understand why.

Content warning: homophobia, child death, murder, claustrophobia (buried alive), drowning, slurs

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
The synopsis of this book sounded intriguing to me so I requested a copy to read.
Unfortunately, I have tried reading this book on 2 separate occasions and during this 2nd attempt, I have
decided to stop reading this book
and state that this book just wasn't for me.
I wish the author, publisher and all those promoting the book much success and connections with the right readers.

First, thank you to netgalley and the publishers for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This was a well paced interesting book. If I'm honest though, it was absolutely young adult and pretty cheesy overall. Paranormal books always require suspension of belief, but this one required suspension of belief of how normal human interactions usually go. It was just too unbelievable and incredibly cheesy for me to take seriously in any way.

Oh. My. God. I could not put this book DOWN! An absolutely fantastic and creepy read. The prose flows so effortlessly and beautifully, and the relationships between the characters are great. Super excited to recommend this to the teens at my library. I can’t wait to see what Courtney writes next!

I was lucky enough to receive an arc of Courtney Gould's debut novel, The Dead and the Dark, and I've got to tell you: this book is everything. It has a little bit of something for everyone, as it blend fantasy, horror, mystery, and thriller elements together. Plus, the novel (and characters) itself is very LGBT+ friendly.

Logan Ortiz-Woodley is used to her fathers chasing ghosts and following local horror stories. As such, she's seen a lot of weird things. But never something like this. There is something truly messed up in Snakebite, Oregon – and the townspeople are blaming her family.

Ashley Barton is one of those townspeople, as her boyfriend was the first person to go missing. Now, having met Logan and her family, she can't help but feel a tearing of her allegiance – and she doesn't know what to do with that.

“After thirteen years, the Dark has finally come home.”

Apparently this month has been very good to me! I had the opportunity to read to amazing (read: 5 star) dark thriller LGBT+ novels that I instantly fell in love with. The first was A Lesson in Vengeance, and now The Dead and the Dark.

The Dead and the Dark is a spine-tingling read, one that I picked up with the intention of only reading a chapter or two before bed. I ended up reading the whole book, and staying up way later than intended. And I can't even pretend to regret that decision! The Dead and the Dark was brilliant.

With a title like The Dead and the Dark, you're going to expect some dark stuff to go down, right? Well, let me tell you – prepare for even more than that. It was a tense and thrilling ride from start to finish.

Honestly, I envy all of the readers out there that still have the opportunity to read The Dead and the Dark for the first time. You're in for a treat. Logan and Ashley's characters play off each other so wonderfully, and make such a sharp contrast. Both to the plot, and the town itself.

“Ashley realized the same look on Logan's face that she'd seen in the mirror for months. They were adrift in the dark, senselessly paddling for shore.”

Everything about this book worked to pull me in. I loved the characters (though admittedly a few of them I simply loved to hate, which is also fun), the plot, the intrigue – all of it! I was desperate to finally see what this 'dark' was, and how Logan's family played into all of it.

The addition of having Logan's fathers be famous ghost hunters was a nice touch, if you ask me. It kind of forced some assumptions to the foreground, and left more room for Gould to play around with.

I'm officially adding Courtney Gould to my list of authors to follow, and I cannot wait to see what she comes up with next!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The first chapter had me gripped and I loved the author's voice and the prose. The Dark is superb and the main characters of Logan and Ashley are well portrayed and written. The chilling mystery kept me gripped throughout and I couldn't stop reading because I needed to know the answers. It is a dark and twisty read and the concept behind the story was excellent and well-executed. This horror/paranormal read is disturbing but superbly done and I highly recommend it to all YA readers.

I was not expecting to love and enjoy this as much as I did, I honestly couldn’t stop reading once I started. I love a good ghost story and this one was eerie and unsettling at times, was full of great characters, and a plot that had me flipping pages to find out more. While this was full of creepy moments, it had such a great family dynamic that had me tearing up at the end.

Logan and her dads travel all over and film for their ghost hunting show. It’s always been the three of them, but for a while Logan’s one dad, Brandon, is distant and doesn’t seem to love Logan. He goes back to his hometown where he and his husband grew up to film for their next season. It’s been a couple of months and he hasn’t even really filmed anything, so Logan and her dad go and figure out what is going on. Snakebite is a very backwards town full of hate and small mindedness. Something bad has been happening in Snakebite since Brandon came back, kids are going missing and some are dead. While Logan and her dads try to figure out what is taking place in this town they’re faced with homophobia and absolute hate from everyone in this small town.

I loved Logan so much and I wish I could have had her attitude and confidence back when I was growing up. I loved her dads so much and just their family relationship as a whole. Snakebite is a super crap town, but it did add to the creepiness because the town is miles from any other town or city. This is told from alternate perspectives, Logan, Ashley, and something supernatural. Ashley was born and raised in Snakebite and her boyfriend is the first to go missing, she is just as small minded as the rest of them and doesn’t like Logan and her family coming to town. Soon enough though Logan and Ashley have to team up and figure out what darkness this town is hiding.

I think The Dead and the Dark is an incredible debut that it going to get a lot of well-deserved hype. It is the perfect fall read, and really did have me creeped out a time or two while reading it. I can’t wait to read more from this author!

The Dead and the Dark is the type of book that resembles smoke in that it is hard to pin down definitely and lingers with you long after you shut the covers. Gould has a distinctive and extremely compelling voice, filled with promise and a tinge of malevolence that I am eager to hear more of.

This has such a strong opening, as we hear from the Dark itself. It is this dark, unsettling and unbridled entity, built of passion and reckless abandon. For me, it showed that craven desire for violence that lingered just below the surface of its host. It was almost like this malevolent force just allowed the darkest desires of this person, allowing them to excuse their own actions and justify them. From then on, the narrative of the Dark was this twisted and fascinating interlude to Logan and Ashley’s story. It is this manifestation of grief, trauma and the deeply buried past. Gould’s inclusion of its perspective was such an interesting move and really helped fully immerse me in the story. Beyond the Dark, the opening perfectly sets the scene with murder and death straight away. The tension is so thick and the suspense creeps in like a fog, slowly engulfing you in this twisty, horror-tinged thriller.

From there, we are introduced to Logan and Ashley, both of whom I fell in love with straight away. These are two complex and brilliant teenagers, shouldering their own secrets and fractured family relationships. They’re trying to navigate themselves but within the confines of Snakebite. This is your classic small town, claustrophobic and built on a legacy of secrets. It’s a shadowy place, cloaked by lies and hatred. All this culminates in an extremely hostile atmosphere, with the collective people of Snakebite forming this mob mentality against our protagonists. This helps rampant up the tension, which perfectly compliments the mystery. Gould has crafted a really good mystery, packed full of shocking twists and turns. I genuinely couldn’t pull myself away from the pages.

The Dead and the Dark is an enthralling sapphic horror and thriller that delves into a nuanced and fascinating exploration of trauma, hatred and the emotions we bury just under the surface.

DRC provided by St. Martin's Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Representation: lesbian protagonist, queer protagonist, gay secondary character, bisexual Latine secondary character, Latine tertiary characters.

Content Warning: homophobia, homophobic vandalism, death, violence, child endangerment.

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould is an eerie contemporary horror novel about family, identity, love and the mysterious darkness that envelopes an entire town and its citizens.

Logan and her dads are always on the move because of her parent’s job as ghost-hunters in a TV show. After an uncommonly long stay in Los Angeles, they move back to Snakebite, her parents’ hometown, to scout the place for another episode of the series, but that is not the real reason behind the impromptu move; and not the only mystery her family and Snakebite hide.

Queer mediums are a big success this year: just think of the phenomenal Black Water Sister by Zen Cho and the spine-chilling The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass. And The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould is yet another heavy hitter in this literary niche with its very loveable characters (although I wish some secondary ones were more fleshed-out), the sinister atmosphere, the themes and its amazingly original premise.

What most enthralled me was the feeling of claustrophobia the writing evoked, even though I wish it had delved even deeper into the horror aspects and managed to give me gooseflesh, but that does not mean it was not horrifying, I just wanted it to be more.

Courtney Gould gifted us an extremely stunning, queer ghost story with The Dead and the Dark and I cannot wait to read more of her works!

This was suspenseful, spooky, genuinely terrifying, and grips you from the beginning to end.

The broad cast of characters in such a small town and the representation of lgbtq+ was done well. The points of grief and a sense of isolation really permeates the entire book.

This personifying of this darkness, giving it thoughts and actions and how it manipulates was creepy but so interesting. There was one scene with the Darkness under a window that really unnerved me. Two young women following a spirit to solve a series of murders in their small town like it was an episode of ghostbusters/ghost hunters, give me more of that please. The twists and turns just kept coming, one that was extremely shocking.

This would be a perfect read for the Halloween season. Its atmospheric, it's creates those visuals in your head that give you the jeebies, but it also tackles some strong emotions. Definitely recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martins Press for the eARC in return for my honest review.

This book has been on my radar since it was announce. The cover is beautiful and the synopsis is perfect. Courtney Gould sure does weave a tale in this book that is sure to creep some people out.

This follows Logan, the daughter of the guys that have the paranormal TV show. One of her dads goes to Snakebite, Oregon to hunt for a new site and case for the show. The problem? He has been there for 6 months. Logan and her other dad pack up to move there and see just what's going on in the small town of Snakebite. When they get there they learn there is a teenager missing. Can they solve this missing persons case before anyone else goes missing?

I think this book leaned a little too young on the YA spectrum for me to enjoy it. Especially for a spooky book. The dialogue and actions of the characters also seemed off from their age. The mystery and the solving of it also just didn't grip me. It wasn't as creepy as I would have liked. This makes this book PERFECT for readers who want a little bit of spooky, but are generally too scared to read more thrilling novels.

Overall 3 stars!

STUNNING. IMMACULATE. Oh my God, I loved it. Was it the scariest thing I've ever heard? No, but it was so ominous and eerie and WOW! I loved the characters and I genuinely cared for all of them, especially Queen Logan. I also really appreciated how the queer girl's ex-boyfriend wasn't antagonized and was actually a really sweet guy. However, the homophobia is definitely a trigger warning, because the speech is very hateful and could be very hard to read for some readers.

This was great. A supernatural, YA thriller. It had a great spooky atmosphere that makes it a great seasonal/Halloween read. The story has many layers to it that makes it not only a great thriller read, but also a great social commentary read. Highly recommend for teens and adults alike.

Seventeen-year-old Logan Ortiz-Woodley is dreading the move from LA to her fathers’ hometown of Snakebite, Oregon. Her dads, the cohosts of the TV show “ParaSpectors”, think Snakebite is the perfect location to film an upcoming episode for their show after they suspect occurrences of paranormal activity. Logan decides to go on a mission of her own to investigate the secrets of this small town, teaming up with a local teen, Ashley, whose boyfriend Tristan has been missing for months.

This YA novel is full of creepy vibes and dark twists, and I enjoyed every second of it! The story is fast-paced, and keeps you on the edge of your seat while reading. I appreciated the diverse representation in the novel, and the characters are likable and relatable. Overall, this is the perfect paranormal thriller to read in the fall, especially around Halloween, and I think it would be an excellent choice for my eighth grade students as well.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press—Wednesday Books for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

“Like Riverdale but good” is the perfect description for The Dead and the Dark. This book was everything I didn’t know I needed. Ashley and Logan, and Brandon and Alejo, were do real. The paranormal presence was there but it was also a constant question of is it real? Which is how I love my ghost stories told. The pacing was so well done I was riveted after a few chapters and the plot kept me guessing so I never saw the twists coming until it was too late! Honestly just so good. But more than the mystery and the ghost story, I loved that this book was about family and love and all the forms it can take. It was about mistakes and hurt and loss but how we can heal and maybe move on. Such a perfect story that balances spooky mystery with family and finding love. 4.5 stars!