This is a story about a girl searching for the dark in a family who speaks to the dead.

This was a creepy, fun, small town horror. Also, there’s great LGBTQIA+ representation! I think I wanted more relationship building, but as is it was a quick and effective ghost story.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️. 💫

Thank you so much @netgalley & @macmillan.audio & @stmartinspress & @wednesdaybooks for this eArc & ALRC!

Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced copy of the audiobook.

The narration was excellent. Easy to understand.

As for the story it was okay.

Thank you Net Galley for an audio ARC of The Dead and the Dark. I would consider this a mystery thriller with a dash of paranormal. If you like this genre, try out this debut author. Personally I thought this book was OK. The writing was good, but I thought the storyline had problems. Others are loving this debut. So was it just me?

Logan and her two ghost hunter dads, Alejo and Brandon, have just moved to Snakebite, Oregon. It's their hometown and they've come to investigate the supernatural for their TV show ParaSpectors. However, when Brandon arrives ahead of his family, a local teen, Tristan, goes missing. Ashley, his girlfriend doesn't believe he's dead, but they can't seem to find him anywhere in this small town. Soon Ashley and Logan team up to solve this murder.
I was lucky enough to listen to an audio ARC of this book read by Soneela Nankani, and let me just tell you, that audio is the way to go for this story. When she read the Dark sections, I got chills. She really solidified the spookiness of the story in her narration.
The Dead and the Dark is a solid horror story, a modern ghost story told in a unique way. I loved this book! I definitely recommend it. Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for this audio ARC!

This book is incredible!!!

Queer characters - check
Mystery - check
Enemies to lovers - check
Ghost hunting girlfriends- CHECK

Logan and her dads (paranormal investigators) come to Snake Bite for a job. Ashley is in mourning over the loss of her friend, who she hopes is just missing, despite everyone else giving up.

The whole town is against Logan’s dads and she doesn’t understand why. They even suspect one of them of committing a local crime. Despite Logan and Ashley’s many unpleasant run-ins, the two team up to solve the mystery. Logan’s on a mission to clear her dad’s name and Ashley just wants to find her missing friend. Together the two work through a dark and twisty adventure. Both girls discover new things about themselves and come out changed forever.

2021 Dennis has promised himself that he won't negatively bash unfavorable reviews for books, so if you enjoy magical / paranormal stories in the young adult genre, definitely consider picking up The Dead and the Dark . Sadly, this one didn't work out so much for me and tended to spiral in aspects that just lost my interest.

Holy wow. I was completely planning on having this audiobook on hand for casual listening for the next week, but after I got around a third of the way through, I was totally sucked in. I normally don't have much of a stamina for listening to audiobooks for long periods of time, but I was totally content to do nothing but listen to this book for hours.

One POV follows Logan and her two traveling ghosthunting dads. The other follows Ashley, who lives in Snakebite, Oregon, the small town where Logan and her family end up. Ashley's boyfriend, Tristan, has gone missing, and everyone in the town thinks that Logan's mysterious family has something to do with it. Part mystery, part lesbian love story, part paranormal thriller, this book had something intriguing and inexplainable at every turn. It's rare that a book can actually get my heart racing, but this one did it easily. The story unfolds with perfect pacing and a constant amount of tension that keeps you totally engaged in the story. I was never bored and was always questioning everything I knew about the characters and the town. Every time I thought I could guess how it would end, I was totally wrong. But it all came together perfectly.

In particular, I really loved the characters. Logan, who has never had one place to call home, is placed strongly in contrast to the tight-knit community of Snakebite. She is lonely, self driven, and curious, and in combination, these things are what push her to the center of the mystery. It's easy to empathize with her because of her frustration over knowing she is being lied to. And her contrast with Ashley is also so perfect. The author also does a great job of exploring her grief as Ashley's grapples with extreme loss. She has such a great character arc. And don't get me started on Alejo and Brandon. They are just so wholesome.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes YA, mysteries, sapphic romance, horror, or paranormal stories. Or just anyone at all. I really hope this gets made into a TV series someday. It would be perfect.

The rating is somewhere between 3 and 3.5 stars.

The book isn’t bad by any means, but I was definitely wanting it to go dig into more depth than it did.

The story literally revolves around the small town of Snakebite, OR, and how its residents are resistant to change. I find it interesting that this small town openly accepts people of color (Alejo’s family) but draws the line at queerness. With a lot of small, conservative towns these two are synonymous.

Anyways. I didn’t quite buy the creepy atmosphere that this story set out to create from a paranormal aspect. Rather, I saw a story of a town full of bigoted people that refused to accept queer people and just assumed that they would do anything to protect their own.

What I did enjoy was the established healthy relationship of the dads (Brandon and Alejo) and their immediate acceptance of Logan’s sexuality as a lesbian. Logan very much reminded me of Kat from
Casper who is tied to ghost hunting dads that just wanted to be left the hell alone and not lied to. Logan was a relatable character and a refreshing addition to Snakebite.

Overall, I think this story has good bones as a thriller with interesting horror elements, but I just want to see the author dig in a bit more.

4.5 stars

What a debut!

Logan is an excellent m.c., and hers is the perspective I most enjoy throughout this novel. She the queer daughter of two fathers who host a ghost hunting show, and while this would be a cool premise on its own, the whole scene is strengthened by the family's convenient presence in the fathers' hometown. This location has been recently plagued by disappearing teens, and while the family is trying to get to the bottom of this mystery, there is also widespread concern that some of them may be responsible and/or involved somehow.

There is so much to love about this. First, the coming of age/finding your true self through line has a really cool spin. Logan is a very traditional YA character in the sense that she longs for adulthood/a sense of who she really is, but what she learns is so much more interesting than the average narrative. Her fathers possess many secrets, which certainly adds to both her struggle and her intrigue, but these secrets are not what readers might expect.

Another exceptional aspect is the timely treatment of small-mindedness. This town is filled with homophobes, and Logan gets to hear many manifestations of people's thoughts in this area. I really love how Gould uses the fathers' experiences in the town to highlight that not much has changed by way of local mentality. To me, this is a particularly timely conversation (i.e. we can't rely on the bigots to die out).

Overall, I found this to be a creative demonstration of typical YA tropes in new and intriguing ways, and there is just the right amount of fantasy and reality mixed in here. The rep is on point, too. Very much looking forward to what Gould shares next!

Having read a digital galley of this, I gave the first hour of this a listen and thought the narration was really good. I felt that the narrator fit the character really well and had a captivating way of engaging the listener to the story.

This one was harder to listen to. The narrator, when the speed was bumped up, sounded kind of electronic. (It's not the app, I listen at the same speeds to all my books and this is the first to sound that way) I'm sure that will be fixed before publication, so this is purely directed at the review copy, but I thought it might help improve future review copies by sharing that. Sometimes it was confusing to know who was being read or talked to- the narrator didn't do a very good job at changing up the tone enough to know. I enjoyed the storyline though, from what I could understand anyway. I might have to pick up the physical copy when it's available just to see if it's any easier to read.

Wow. Not at all what I was expecting, but so much better.

At its core The Dead and The Dark is a tale of family. A grieving father willing to do anything to protect his daughter, even defy the laws of nature. And face the consequences.

Addresses the toxicity that often comes with small towns and small minds. The bad thoughts and the bad deeds of this town manifests into a supernatural entity.

I loved this book so much. So wonderfully written, the storyline executed perfectly. The characters were lovable and showed growth and a willingness to forgive.

The narrator was perfect.

*Thank you to the publisher for this eARC.