The description of this book on NetGalley piqued my interest and I just had to request it in both e-book and audiobook and I am so glad that I had access to both. This book is a debut novel written by Courtney Gould and I have to give her kudos for her well-written supernatural mystery.
The setting is Snakebite, a name that grabs my interest immediately, and eerie town name. When I first read “Snakebite” I immediately felt like it was foreshadowing of what was to come. Logan lives there with her fathers, Brandon Woodley and Alejo Ortiz. They are not only ghost hunters, but famous on TV for their ghost hunting.

What is a good mystery without someone going missing or being murdered? Not much for me, but Gould didn’t leave me hanging. Ashley Barton’s boyfriend, Tristan, is missing and she’ll do just about anything to find him. The suspense builds more and more as other teens go missing, and the fun/intrigue really starts with Logan and Ashley decide to team up and look for Tristan.
Much of the mystery, at least to townspeople, is centered around the ghost hunters who many believe might be the culprits of missing teens. There are some unforeseen twists which I always enjoy, especially when they add to the plot and don’t seem unrealistic.

I loved the narrator of the audiobook, Soneela Nankani. Her voice inflections and eerie tones at the appropriate times really added to my enjoyment of the story. I was mesmerized at times by her narration and will definitely read other audiobooks that she narrated.

I would like to thank NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for a free e-ARC and audiobook in exchange for my opinion.

First... look at that cover. Drawn right in. Had to read t just for the cover and title alone. Then add in YA sapphic horror and I was in.

The entire story was intriguing. I loved that one of the main characters comes from a family of paranormal hunters. It felt kitschy that they do that for a living and then come home to Snakebite to possibly film more for their show.

There is so much more than meets the eye since there are disappearances happening, weird things happening and so many secrets.

I enjoyed the two main characters POV and hiw their relationship unravels.

The creep factor is definitely there with this writing and so many unusual things hapen that I found the story very engaging and not a cookie cutter story.

I'll be checking out more from this author soon.

The Dead and the Dark is author Courtney Gould debut book. I would like to thanks first Netgalley and the publisher for an arc of this book.

Something is wrong in the small town of Snakebite in Oregon. Teens are disappearing, or turning dead. And even the weather is not acting normal. All the town seems to blame Logan, daughter of TV's ParaSpectors, a really popular ghosts hunter.

Ashley boyfriend, who was the first of the teen that went missing, will team up with Logan, when she will start seeing his ghost. Logan who she think the only person in town she can trust with this. They will try to figure what is really hauting Snakebite.

Heart-stoppingly good, full of spooks and frights, and deeply emotional, The Dead and The Dark is highly recommended for teen collections.

The Dead and the Dark is a wonderfully creepy book. It is filled with many twists, and has ghosts, romance, and an excellent family dynamic. Well worth reading.

I can't even begin to explain to you what I just read. Just know that it was really good, really gay and REALLY amazing.

I thoroughly enjoyed the paranormal aspects of this book and would love to read more of that from this author with less of the romance thrown in. I felt like it didn’t add very much to the story that already had so much going on.

This is my first Courtney Gould novel and I really enjoyed it! This book is perfect for lovers of horror and paranormal and is the perfect spooky season read, especially if you love ghosts and ghost hunting tv shows. In addition to being a paranormal mystery, it is a sapphic young adult novel. I'm pretty sure you could throw any sapphic fantasy novel at me right now and I would enjoy it, and this was no exception. The Dead and the Dark is an enjoyable read and does a great job at depicting how hate and prejudice can truly fester and be malevolent. I also really loved the depiction of queer love and family in this book. I am looking forward to seeing what Courtney Gould writes next!

Thank you NetGalley and Wednesday books for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

dark and creepy, this book crawled under my skin and stayed there. while it was great for a debut, i am excited to see what Gould has up their sleeves next

This book is quite outside my comfort zone when it comes to genre but I really wanted to give it a go. I found the pacing of this book to be quite slow which meant reading it took me a lot longer than I anticipated. I just wish that the twists had been a bit more shocking to me and the characters had been more well-rounded. Still, this book has a diverse cast, shocks along the way and was fun to read. I’m sure this one will be perfect for horror and paranormal fans out there. Thank you to Netgalley for the eARC.

Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for this free ARC! I am honestly sad that I didn't get to it until now because it's so amazing. There are actual ghosts and supernatural phenomenons in this book and it was so well done. Plus, the queer representation was great. I would totally read another book about what happens next!

Let me start by saying that I was thoroughly surprised by this book. The journey that Courtney Gould was able to take me on was stunning. The amount of twists and turns in the plot line, coupled with the atmospheric prose and buildup of relationships between characters, made for a fast paced, thrilling adventure of a read.

The Dead and the Dark is a darkly compelling YA Paranormal Thriller. A perfect mixture of mystery, horror, ghost and romance. I really enjoyed diving into this story.

This book was an intense sensory experience! At first I wasn't sure that I was liking it. The author describes the smells of emotions (examples taken directly from the book: "the morning smelled like soil and hurt." or, "It smells like peril."--what??) as well as many claustrophobic visual descriptions (if you're afraid of the dark, watch out) but in the end, the effect is extremely spooky and very compelling. I admit, I had to fire up an episode of Ghost Adventures. The twists kept coming and kept me reading and I absolutely underestimated this book.

What a darkly amazing, epic queer book! I really needed some more queer horror stories in my life and this did not disappoint. The mystery, the epicness, THE CHARACTERS! I loved every minute of this read! Looking forward to more books by this author.

Some part of this were very atmospheric and had an interesting tone. However, I thought the plot was lacking and the character development left a lot of be desired. Overall, I found this very predictable and I felt that it dragged. However, I would read another book by this author and give it a shot.

I feel like I've read a lot of books about children of ghost hunters stumbling into situations with real ghosts lately. Is this a new sub-genre?

At any rate, I kind of thought I knew what I was getting into.

Logan's dads are stars of a ghost hunting show, which leads the family to Snakebite, Oregon. It's a strange little town, but then again, the whole scenario is a little strange. First off, one of Logan's dads won't even tell her why they're actually there. There are folks in town who seem to know both of Logan's parents. Plus her other dad has been very distant. Let's use the word 'strange' again. Her other dad was been very strange.

Logan's path crosses with Ashley, a local girl mourning her boyfriend's disappearance (and assumed death). Together, they try to unravel the mystery of Snakebite, and find themselves falling for each other in the process.

There is a lot of heavy subject matter in this book. Homophobia is a huge component, as well as some disturbing scenes involving small children.

And I didn't really believe the ending. It was satisfying, but it felt weird compared to the mood of the rest of the book.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

first and foremost: i think what i will take away from this book is its representation of queer love and queer family - the fierce care between logan and her dads, logan and ashley, and alejo and brandon. these characters were standouts amidst an otherwise mixed reading experience, and i appreciate so much the book's navigation of logan's loving - if fraught - relationships with her dads.

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logan ortiz-woodley has never known home. since she can remember, she's been living motel to motel, town to town, as she and her dads - alejo and brandon - traverse the country to film their ghost-hunting show. yet when brandon inexplicably brings their family to snakebite, oregon, logan knows something is going to change... and not necessarily for the better. teens are disappearing, a sense of wrongness permeates the town, her dads are hiding a dark past, and logan is at the centre of it all. with the help of ashley barton, daughter of snakebite's wealthiest family, logan must uncover unexpected light among the dead and the dark.

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i am a sucker for YA horror - especially YA horror featuring queer girls and gorgeous covers. the dead and the dark delivered on both counts.

the actual story itself, i'm more ambivalent about. i was definitely intrigued by the book's opening. i mean, just check out this line from the first chapter:

The Dark watches the boy. It is tucked into the body of a new host, staggering across dead grass and juniper boughs for a better view. This new body is unwieldy to the Dark. It will take time to adjust to this skin, to these eyes, to the anxious beating of this new heart.


however, the paranormal world-building became a let-down as the book progressed :( frankly, i'm not even sure world-building is an appropriate word, because the paranormal parts of this story were simple and banal. the protagonists have inexplicable and inconsistent ghost-sensing abilities (and devices that can do things like TEXT ghosts!); the villain's lore is founded on a trope, (view spoiler), that had a great message but clichéd execution; and the final showdown was incredibly anti-climactic.

parts of the mystery also bothered me. for one, the killer's identity was easily predictable. worse, though, was the book's clumsy reliance on time jumps to skip past significant events that robbed readers of key emotional experiences; there were several weeks-long time jumps that occurred after character deaths, by which point logan and ashley had seemingly bounced back with hardly any display of grief or being impacted by the deaths at all.

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bottom line, though: i would recommend reading this book - especially for its depiction of queer love and queer family.


thank you netgalley and the publisher for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoyed The Dead and the Dark. I loved our two main girls and the way their friendship (and eventual relationship) developed. I think the author using supernatural elements to show how prejudice and hate can fester and breed even more hostility was really well done. This took a good look at some really terrible experiences while still giving a ray or hope and optimism at the end.

I think this will be a really good book for queer teens to read and I’ll definitely be recommending it!

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. In the afterword, the author mentions how her editor called it "Riverdale, but good", and I totally get that vibe. While reading, I also thought how this was more like what I would have wanted The Sun Down Motel to be, despite this being YA. Overall, it was a satisfying read.

It wasn't entirely without it's faults, though, with one of them being that it felt like the main character, Logan, lacked a level of depth and personal growth that would have helped me engage with her a bit more. I wanted to really like her - I just didn't, as she fell a bit flat for me by the end.

The other thing was her dads - honestly, how could these two be bumping around that town, investigating for all that time, and not figure out a single thing? To my eyes, they had all the tools Logan had (and more!), and yet they were still surprised when the final resolution revealed itself, and hadn't managed to make any kind of headway before then. It just made it feel like the main story arc, which focuses on the teens, got all the attention and didn't leave room for the logical development of the secondary arc and its integration in the overall story.

Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader copy of The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould in exchange for an honest review. I had a bit of trouble getting into this book, as it was really dark and not really what I was in the mood for. I kept at it, because I hate quitting books, and did get into it. A beautiful, creepy story with love and pain.