Kelly Andrew's second YA fantasy/romance/horror novel is beautifully written and deeply moving. I went in fairly blind to what this story would be about and I am so glad I did. I had no idea what to expect but I was enthralled at every turn. The story revolves around 3 main characters and POV's in two timelines. In the present, Wyatt returns to her family home after the death of her father to burn the place down, only to find Peter, one of two friends who would visit every summer, still there under, well- let;s just say interesting circumstances. There are many secrets Wyatt discovers about Peter, the farm she grew up on, and the reason for her father's yearly summer event that put the three kids together in the first place. To understand her present, we also get flashbacks to Wyatt's past, growing up and looking forward each year to spending the summer with her two friends while the adults did there thing.

I was impressed with how Andrew was able to weave the tow timelines together to make the reveals she makes at just the right timing. I loved the way this novel examines nostalgia and childhood, with the dissonant memories of their experiences as adults. There is a cruelty to the story that is balanced by a genuine connection and friendship amongst the three main characters that become a family for each other in the midst of being ignored by the adults that should know better. In short, I loved this book and hope others will read it and be just as moved.

OH MY GOD! Kelly Andrew delivers yet again. I was hooked on this book from start to finish, I could not put it down. I loved the little cameos from some familiar faces. The ending made me absolutely bawl. I have said it before and I will say it again, I will read anything that Andrew releases and I can't wait for her next book.

A bit disappointed as I had sky high hopes for this one. I think this book suffers from great-ideas-poor-execution syndrome. Everything was there for a compelling and emotional story, but the pieces just didn’t fit right. I didn’t feel any connection to the characters and when the ending happened, it was expected and left me with little impact. Also, the world building really could have used a little more attention. We don’t know why so much of what happening is happening, or even what certain fantastical creatures are/their motives/etc. beyond “evil.” Wyatt having the perfect magic ready at any point with no reason system/rules/limitation in place, and with no real training, becomes an all powerful witch. It just felt like eve try thing was way too convenient and lacked depth.

arc disclosure
I received an advanced copy of this book to give my honest review. Everything in this review is written in my own words for no other compensation than the e-copy of this book. For more information on my review policy, click here.

intro
This was my first read by Kelly Andrew. I have to admit, the cover immediately drew me in, and then I read the blurb and knew I had to read it. Fantasy? Check. Creepy aesthetic? Check. Friends-to-enemies-to-lovers vibes? Check, check, check!

So, did this book live up to the hype I built up in my head?

thoughts
This book was [mostly] a pleasant surprise. It was wonderfully written with some lovely prose that I greatly enjoyed reading. I love fantasy and paranormal, so the premise of this story was right up my alley.

I’m not really sure what my final thoughts are on this book. I enjoyed it, but it had a few issues. For one, just like some other reviewers have said, I felt like it was too long for the amount of story that was included. I also wish the past and present timelines were a little more clear, because jumping between the two was incredibly confusing.

Peter’s story line was super intriguing, but I wish it’d been more fleshed out. The only answers we got for sure were that he was an immortal and it was because of a deal his dad made. And he was somehow from among the stars, but we have no context of his homeland nor do we understand why his dad made this deal in the first place other than they were starving. But why were they starving? What happened to this “home among the stars?” I think this may be alluding to a super loose inspiration from Peter Pan, but I wish we had a little more answers and some more details so we could understand the motivation better.

bullet points

* the monsters in this book were genuinely creepy and a couple times what I was reading gave me a chill I wasn’t expecting!
* Peter was a walking red flag and I loved it.
* since I didn’t read the first book Kelly wrote, I had no prior attachments to or expectations for Wyatt’s friends and the way they were introduced to this book was kind of jarring. They were just all of the sudden there. Maybe if I’d read the other book, it wouldn’t have felt so out of the blue, I’m not sure.
* this has no merit to the story whatsoever, but this is absolutely one of my favorite covers ever. It’s gorgeous!


final thoughts
Overall, I enjoyed this book as a whole, but I’ve gotta admit…the ending almost ruined it for me. Oftentimes the ending will either make or break a book, and this one kind of broke the book in my opinion. This will not be a re-read. Honestly, if I’d known how the book was going to end, I probably wouldn’t have ever picked it up to begin with. If you have book ending anxiety, I have a spoiler tag below that you can click on. Otherwise, that’s all I’m going to say about it. (I took the spoilers out of this review. If you want to read them, feel free to visit my blog)

The first half of this book was absolutely worth the read and I don’t regret it. The angst, the first love, the will-they/won’t-they, the sort of love-to-hate-back-to-love emotions, the creepy atmosphere, the crazy powers…all of that was great and based on that, I would have thought this book was going to become one of my favorite reads of the year.

Unfortunately…
I keep going between 3 stars or a little higher…because if I were basing my rating purely on the ending, I would’ve given it a 1. This is the kind of ending I hate and avoid like the plague. However, in the end I decided to rate this book as 3 stars, maybe even 3.5, because I did think it was beautifully written, the story as a whole was great, and I hope the author continues to write many more books in the future.
And as always, if this book sounds appealing to you, please do not hesitate to pick it up and read it for yourself. This is simply my own authentic opinion 🙂

Thank you, NetGalley and Kelly Andrew for the e-ARC of this book!
final rating
3.5/5

Kelly truly outdid herself with this one. Has great appeal not only for the teens it was written for but also crossover appeal for adult readers who loved her first book. She continues to impress with strong prose, atmosphere, and characters.

If I could give this novel an infinity amount of stars I would. Wyatt, Pedyr, and James lead the readers through a spine tingling, gut wrenching story of betrayal, hidden secrets, and heart break. Kelly Andrew has crafted a novel full of nostalgic yearning paired with an immersive creepy setting that left me staring into the ether as I tried to wrap my brain around the unpredictable final chapters of the book. You absolutely need this novel in your life.

Dual POV, Found Family, Haunted Forrest, Forced Proximity, Cottagecore Horror

Loved this one! I’m always such a sucker for YA so this one was perfect for me!
Left me wanting more🥰

I was so excited when I received an arc of this one through NetGalley and boy was I even more so once I started reading it! I was entranced from the first page. Wyatt, Peter and James were all such messy, flawed and beautiful characters. I loved their dynamics and I was impressed with the magic system. The ending broke my heart and left me in tears but it was worth every bit of ache to read this story.

The gothic voice in this book is top tier, which shouldn’t be a surprise after her first book, but I’m still blown away by the detail that goes into the language and descriptions.
I was questioning how this story would end until the last page. Just all vibes and suspense for days.

Set in the same universe as the author's 2022 debut, [book:The Whispering Dark|58760656], <i><u>Your Blood, My Bones</u></i> is an atmospheric tale centered around a dark family legacy. It's the author's tribute to times immemorial and the versions of ourselves we leave behind in those memories. It's also deeply haunting and romantic, the gothic/horror vibes even stronger than the author's debut. It is also about deep bonds and lasting friendships, of sacrifice and dark secrets, and a little bit about immortality.

The plot is interesting, although at times horrific, but I definitely stayed for the beautiful, descriptive prose.

So, if you're looking for a paranormal YA romance with gothic/horror vibes, look no further!

I'm looking forward to future works by Kelly Andrew - in her Owlcrate interview, she said that her next book is her most romantic to date yet and is also set in the same universe as [book:The Whispering Dark|58760656] and [book:Your Blood, My Bones|124932778].

This book was a really strong idea with a little bit of a mediocre execution. I loved the setting of Willow Heath and the interesting variety of monsters and hell beasts that crept into it. The magic system was also interesting, but felt very rushed in places. The addition of other magical human(oids) towards the end really threw things for a loop. In addition, Wyatt’s motivations were not always clear and often felt muddled and unrealistic. Overall, this was an ok book, but not one that really blew me away. I would love to see more in this world with a bit more editing and character development to really sell the story.

**Thank you so much Scholastic Press and Kelly Andrew for the arc! All words and thoughts in this review are my own honest opinion!**
Posted to: NetGalley, Goodreads, and The Storygraph
Posted on: 27 April 2024

3.7 (rounded up to4) out of 5 stars.

Phew, okay this took me much too long to get to and even longer still to finish. I feel like if this book had been with me more consistently, I may have been less critical of it? And I say this lightly because it still got 4 stars based off my rating scale, but I have a lot of thoughts floating around about it.

To start, this isn’t my first Kelly Andrew book. I got a copy of ‘The Whispering Dark’ when it first released (I received it through Illumicrate and my sister through OwlCrate so we buddy read it). It was never finished though, and this was before I knew about DNF’ing, book slumps, reading slumps- all that jazz. So when I saw this title and read the bio, I was a little worried about trying another Kelly Andrew book since I hadn’t finished the first one. I’m really glad I read this though, because while I have my qualms about it, it was a really lovely read!

On a more critical note, the characters sometimes had annoying habits. There were also times where they fell a little flat to me or just lacked a little something that would’ve made their role in the story hit *more*.
Another thing was that I think I got lost a bit in the plot? Some things happened that kind of felt awkwardly placed or solutions just given for the sake of finding an out??
Again, it took me longer to read this book than usual, so I feel like I’ll have different opinions on this when I go back to read it and actually finish it in my usual reading time (a week, give or take. Not a whole month..)

What I *loved* about this book was the writing in some places. It was pretty, it was meaningful, it added a little depth to the flatness I found. I saved a lot of quotes from this because there was just *something* about the rotting, about the decay, and how Andrew describes it. The writing style wasn’t one of my favorites, but the things being written were- does that make sense?

Overall, it was a nice read! I did enjoy it, and I did decide to keep my OwlCrate copy of it. I think the magic used was also interesting to me, but at the heart of it, the struggles and the growth of the main cast had me.

I loved every single thing about this book. It was dark and creepy and kept me enthralled the entire time. I couldn't put it down. I'll definitely be reading more by this author asap

For readers who enjoy Gothic horror, written with great detail and atmosphere, this may be the book for you. Elements of the paranormal, romance, grief/loss are also included in this book for young adult readers, although I do feel adults are a more likely target audience.

Kelly Andrew's writing improves with each book. She really pushes the boundaries of the genre. This book pushed my reading comfort zone in a good way. in terms of genre That being said I probably would not have picked up the book if I knew what would be considered a pretty large spoiler about the romance, this is not a reflection of the book, rather of me as a reader.

Thank you to Scholastic Press and Netgalley for the ARC.

Wow. WOW. WOWZA. This book...
LOVE LOVE LOVE FOREVER LOVE god this story was AMAZING. SO well told.
ten out of ten, no notes. Loved it, can't say that enough. Great world building.

Big thanks to Scholastic YA & Colored Pages Tours for the eARC via Netgalley!

God, I forgot how much I loved this niche sub-genre of urban fantasy aka books with creepy forest Raven Cycle vibes,,,

Ugh this book just brought me BACK to my freaking roots (ha yes pun!) and I had the bestest time. truly. She just sucked me right in and I could not get enough.

I have to say I was not loving the first chapter or so, but once I was past that, I was HOOKED. I do not exaggerate when I say the creepy forest vibes are everything. Huh, no wonder I'm writing my own book almost exactly like that... lmao

Anyway, I'm getting side-tracked. The writing was eerie and atmospheric and I was IN THE STINKING FOREST LIVING MY BEST LIFE. The magic made next to no sense and I didn't care because it wasn't making sense in a good way. Like who was the beast? Idk but I could picture him anyway and it was amazing.

Omg and the characters!!! Ms Wyatt was a freaking queen and I loved her. We love soft and slightly damaged boys and Peter was definitely one of them. Don't even get me started on the angsty friends/enemies to lovers. Even Jamie, a weirdo but we loved.

If you're anything like me and have a likening to any of the above but mostly those eerie vibes then you've come to the absolute right place and either you'll devour this book or it'll devour you *wink wink*

I really really enjoyed this book! It drew me in immediately. At times the story felt slow and someone episodic but I devoured it. The ending left me feeling a little sad but I see why it needed to happen the way that it did.

Your Blood, My Bones is a twisty, atmospheric gothic tale that had me on the edge of my seat. Full of dark, family secrets and cunning cryptids–Kelly Andrews really draws you into this setting like you yourself could almost feel the moss and dirt of the forest beneath your toes. Wyatt is such a powerhouse of a protagonist! I’m such a sucker for a witchy woman who can wield an axe and won’t take shit from no one! And both Peter and James are so mysterious…in their own very different ways...And can we talk about the tension between these three??! I was flipping through these pages so fast, wondering if they were about to kill each other or maybe kiss or maybe both?! This book has claimed my soul and left me guessing on how this would end!

Your Blood, My Bones is a YA horror romance with excellent nature-occult vibes and heartfelt themes of the angst of revisiting childhood nostalgia with new context as an adult. In terms of setting and atmosphere, I could definitely compare this to the Thornchapel series by Sierra Simone (but without the adult sexual content and queer polyamory). The audiobook narration is great, and the audio copy from my library included an interview with the author. It was super interesting to learn that the author, Kelly Andrew, is Deaf with a cochlear implant, and how that experience has shaped her relationship with sound and music, especially as they relate to the emotional component of storytelling. She has a curated music playlist to accompany this book, and in that interview she gives insight to the song choices and how they line up with specific themes or moments in the book. Trigger warnings for blood, human sacrifice, animal death, and corpse reanimation.