A young girl who wants to fight monsters and restore her family name? Sign me up!

I loved the lore and world building. I've always been a fan of folklore and had a great time seeing figures I'd heard about pop up throughout the story. There was a slight gothic vibe, let's call it gothic-lite, that really pulled me in.

There's a lot of groundwork laid for the future book or books, namely what happened with Winnie's dad, that would be interesting to see playout. However, I found myself not fully able to connect with Winnie or those around her. Granted, I'm not the target audience.

I did love her tenacity however and her desire to work hard for not only what she wanted but for what it would mean for her family. She was strong in so many ways and proved she can handle almost anything. The second-chance romance aspect also seemed to fit in perfectly with where we find Winnie when we start the book.


The narrator was amazing and really gave life to Winnie and those around her.

*received for free from netgalley for honest* This was a really great book! Im super pumped about the second one! really liked the characters and the story!

I loved everything about this! The narrator is one of my favorites and I think she did an amazing job with this one.
The book itself is my favorite by Susan! The world created, the creepy forest, the mythology behind the whole system is fantastic! I am very invested in Win and her journey and I can’t wait to see how her relationships develop. The atmosphere of this book is very aesthetic and I can’t wait for more!

Winnie's family lives in an area near Chicago where seven families all named after the days of the week have lived for centuries protecting the world against the monsters in the forest. Winnie is part of the Wednesday family. Her father was outed as a "witch" and her family, her moth and brother have been shunned ever since. Her father left the community. Winnie is tired of being shunned. She is treated like a child and has to do the dirty jobs with the children. Her sixteenth birthday is coming up and this is when the individuals in the community are allowed to take a test to become hunters. The test is extremely serious and some have even died. Winnie shows up and the adults can't believe she's serious, considering what her father did, but she accidentally proves herself worthy. An unknown monster comes through and kills a banshee in front of her but everyone credits her with the kill. Winnie spends the rest of the book trying to find out more about the unknown monster and get her family back into the community.

This book didn't develop the lore of the community or the history of Winnie's family as much as I'd like. I was confused for most of it why it mattered that her father was a witch and that they shunned her family for it. Winnie was also very teenager-y and hard to relate to but if this type of story appeals to people they would enjoy it.

I tried really hard to get into this one via audiobook, but I keep seeing so many of my friends rave about the mysticism of this book and so maybe I’m going to give it another go-around. I’m dying to be swept away by some far-out fantastical world that trains the youth to be warriors so that they may fight and defend their communities, and this is exactly what I’m feeling based off the synopsis and cover art.

I read this back in November of 2022 but just now getting around to writing a review for it because I’m the worst. I don’t think I’ll request ARCs during the holiday season next year so I don’t get so behind.

Anyway I did really enjoy this book, It’s essentially about an organization known as the Luminaries that is established near a forest that contains a living spirit and when that spirit sleeps it’s nightmares manifest into a variety of monsters. The Luminaries’ job is is too destroy these monsters before they leave the forest and attack the general population.

The Main character and her family are being ostracized from the community due to actions her father took in service to a group with opposing goals before running away. She wants to win her family’s standing back in the community by becoming a Hunter for them. The story focuses a lot on her struggles of having to fake it until you make it while her peers are shunning her.

I’d call this a work of magical realism, even though the only real magic is the monsters existing, but I still feel like that’s the best category.

It loses a star for me as I feel like the ending wasn’t very strong and not quite a complete arc; That being said I’m absolutely invested and will be reading the sequel (The Hunting Moon) when it comes out.

Caitlin Davies provides the narration for this novel, and delivers a great performance.

Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the opportunity to read this book for review. While I did receive this in exchange for a review it does not affect my thoughts on this work.

I didn't know the whole LumiNerds backstory but how cool is that! This is a really cool project! And a fun read too.

Things I liked,
The writing was good. The characters were interesting. The forest was unique.

Things I didn’t,
The world building in this book fell flat. Someone else called this urban fantasy and I feel like that fits. There was a lot missing in this book. Why were they hunting in the forest? Why did the forest only produce nightmares at night? But why did so many people from other regions know about this forest and being a hunter? What was the real threat?

Overall I was confused and bored. The cliff hanger was bad. I feel like she could have given the answer to one question before she cut off the book.

Perfect spooky book for anyone who is a fan of YA Paranormal . I loved that it wasn't in multiple POVs because with a paranormal book for me that makes it a lot more confusing. The monsters were great to read and the main character Winnie was easy to love in my opinion.

3.5⭐️ I think the world building was decently done. I do wish I had more understanding of the world but maybe that’s meant to continue with some of the mysteriousness surrounding this town. Overall, the characters were interesting and plot was mostly fulfilling. I might recommend it to younger readers as the writing was nice.

This gave me the feeling of a dark fantasy variation of Skyward by Brandon Sanderson. It just wasn’t as captivating to me.

I learned this was actually a “choose your own adventure” type story done on twitter and was turned into this book, which I did find pretty cool.

I’d consider reading the next book on audio.

Thanks to NetGalley for the audiobook ARC.

THE LUMINARIES is a haunting and high-octane contemporary fantasy, about the magic it takes to face your fears in a nightmare-filled forest, and the mettle required tp face the secrets hiding in the dark corners of your own family.

This was a wonderful read to mix things up with my current reads, and I thought it gave such spooky, atmospheric vibes while reading. The audiobook really set the tone of dark secrets looming, and was so well done. Narrated by Caitlin Davies, I thought she was a great choice for this story!

*many thanks to Tor and Macmillan Audio for the gifted copy for review

This is a must listen to right now!!!! If you are a fan of YA fantasy, this book is such a fresh unique niche of the genre satisfying that need for something new and exciting while falling in the realms of the paranormal. I typically am not a fan of present day fantasy, but this book is outright changing my feelings on the matter. I've been scouring the internet all afternoon, trying to figure out when book 2 will come. I need more!
This book takes place in the town of Hemlock Falls, which seems completely unconnected to the rest of the world and a hub for paranormal activity. The town is plagued by nightmares, that are revealed by a mist every evening. It's the job of the luminaries to hunt these monsters each night, protecting the town from their wrath. The luminaries are divided into clans. Each clan's family name is a day of the week subsequently, their last names coincide with their night of their hunting duty.
Winnie, our main character, wants nothing more than to be a luminary, but thanks to her dad's involvement in the rival group the Diana's, Winnie, her brother and her mom are left outcasts, stripped of any luminary activity for 10 years. Winnie's best friends Jay and Erica also abandoned her, leaving her with a lot of free time to study the Compendium. A book detailing all the monsters that roam the forrest in Hemlock Falls.
However, Winnie's 16th birthday rolls around, and even outcasts can participate in hunter tryouts. So Winnie attends, finding more than she bargained for in the forest.

The Luminaries… such a good book! I really liked it! And it’s a trilogy! Can’t wait for the next one! So good! It follows Winnie Wednesday, a shunned girl whose one dream is to be a hunter for her people. But, as she soon learns, being a hunter isn’t everything she thought it would be. Full of angst, teenage drama, and some good laughs as well, it will keep you enthralled from the start. Kudos to the narrator as well. She did an excellent job.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the early ARC!

The Luminaries follows Winnie Wednesday as she works to earn back her family's place in The Luminaries, a secret society of monster hunters who protect Hemlock Falls. It's a fun and fast paced story and quite enjoyable.

Winnie may not always make the best choices but it's understandable why she does what she does. When she faces her first hunter trial things don't go quite as expected and things sort of go off the rails from there.

Thankfully Winnie has the help of former friend Jay (#UghJay) to help her survive. Their relationship was probably one of my favorite parts of the books and honestly I wish there had been more of it in the book. I'm excited to hopefully see more of it in the next 2 books. It's obvious there's more to Jay than meets the eye.

This story is spooky without being horror and it's exciting enough to keep you on your toes. But the most interesting part isn't the monsters in the forest, it's the human relationships that unfold. Can't wait to see where everything goes!

The one thing I might change is the mention of clicking teeth because it happened one too many times for my liking haha.

Also if you don't know the how the idea of this story started, go look it up cause it's quite unique and fun!

This book did not capture my attention like I had hoped. I did not see that it was an audiobook, which is my fault. It is hard for me to keep focus on an audiobook so I did not finish this one unfortunately.

This book felt very stereotypical and boring to me. The characters were forgettable. The world was kind of interesting but we don't learn enough about it for me to feel impressed by the world-building aspect. The most engrossing storyline was barely developed in this book and left open for continuation in book two, but I don't think it'll be enough to get me to continue this series. 2.5 stars.

It was a 3.5 but rounded up to 4 .

Luminaries are hunters of nightmares. The MC Winnie is about to start her trials to become a hunter, it’s not going to be an easy task because Winnie and her family are outcast , thanks to her father for betraying their ppl.

So for 10 years, her family and Winnie are treated as such and so Winnie wants nothing more than to become a hunter so she can bring her fam out of that negative space her father left them on and so the story begins!

Unfortunately, I struggle to finish the story.. I’m not sure if it was because the book narrator wasn’t doing it for me, but I will be revisiting this in physical form just so I give it another chance bc I think the story & plot were there.. but i was missing something that I can’t quite point just yet.kkk

This was such a unique and exciting new fantasy. I loved the premise and the atmosphere. It was the perfect amount of creepy. Loved the characters and the world built. Very good read

Oh the twists and the conspiracy theories this book caused! I have so many of my own theories and had so many chats with my fellow readers with what we really think is going on, this is a great book for discussion. I can't wait for the next book so all the loose threads can be pulled and hopefully reveal more of the twists this book started. I enjoyed how detailed the world was, with levels of hunters and politics within the Luminary system. And the monsters! They were so cool (in a scary deadly way, of course), completely unique and well detailed, I felt like I experienced them all right along with Winnie.

I will say I got super frustrated with Winnie and her self doubt that she belonged to be in this world. Without being too spoilery, she kicked ass multiple times on her own and totally deserves what she has currently received. I need her to understand her own worth in the next book. Overall this was a great start to a series with some great world building that I am excited to get more of in the next book.

The audio was well done, the narrator brought Winnie to life perfectly as well as all the other side characters. The author has put a lot of description into the story for all the supernatural creatures which works perfectly for the audio experience. The pacing was well done and I highly recommend the audio if you like to listen to your books.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for allowing me the ARC Audiobook. I truly enjoyed this story. Filled with Fantasy, a world that is hiding with in ours, the Luminaries, drag you in with their inclusivity and secrets. I enjoyed the growth of the main character and all the details put into the creatures and the structure of the Luminaries estates and their different duties. I can not wait for the next book to come out because this one left me wanting more!!