What Grows in the Dark by Jaq Evans ticks all the boxes for a soon-to-be bestseller. From the very start, I was captivated and couldn’t tear myself away.

In this chilling contemporary horror novel, a phony spiritualist returns to her hometown, Ellis Creek, to assist in an investigation that eerily mirrors her sister Emma’s mysterious disappearance sixteen years ago. Brigit Weylan, marked by the tragedy, had left town long ago. Now, as she investigates paranormal activity across the country (sometimes faking the results), a call from Ellis Creek thrusts her into a search for two missing teenagers. The parallels to Emma’s death become undeniable, and Brigit faces inexplicable occurrences: trees appearing in her bedroom, a haunting laugh in the darkness, and Emma’s voice urging her to finish what they started.

Don’t miss this gripping debut!

The premise of this book was so good that I'm honestly not sure what resolution would have lived up to its promise; the ending came both too soon and after far too much deliberation somehow, but the lead-up was good enough to mostly offset that. I loved all of the characters, though the protagonist did sometimes lean into one-sided territory with the self-sacrifice/martyr bit. Brigit's exploration of her gender identity (or lack thereof), especially in the context of her small and not necessarily accepting hometown, was especially compelling.

YouTube spiritualists Briget and Ian are trying to find their way to fame as they visit different locations around the globe to help spirits cross over. Down on luck and money, when they get an urgent plea for help from Brigets home town area code they are given an offer to good to refuse. Briget left secrets there that are better left buried. But when they return and the investigation begins reality and fiction start to blur the closer they get to uncovering what grows in the dark.

"Ellis Creek is sticky that way."

WHOA, OKAY Jaq Evans I see you!! What an amazing debut!! Ladies and gentlemen this is defenitly an author to keep an eye on.

Being a firm believer in skipping the synopsis, I went into this completely blind. And OH MAN it took me places I never could of imagined.

The atmospheric descriptions Evans beautifully wrote on these pages are a prime example of instant transportation. No lie it won't take any time at all to feel like you are visiting the small eerie town of Ellis Creek yourself, where the wind speaks to you and you can hear the trees settling all around you.

Now even tho the MFC Briget wasnt my absolute favorite she did, do I dare say it, grew on me the farther into the plot I got. But Ian I really did love the entirety of this book. His contributions to the team and his heart and consideration really did even out these tense and unsettling situations they found themselves in. Except for that one time but we won't talk about that, because spoiler.
But the rest of the characters were distant and were a little reserved really making you wonder what are these people actually hiding and will have you questioning everyone and everything.

With all that leading up to a very intense and chaotic ending that will absolutely suck you in making you turn the pages faster and faster full of eagerness to get to that insane ending revelation.

I do want to preface this won't be for everyone as, you will have to suspend your beliefs a little bit. And the contents on and off page are extreme.
But I'd defenitly recommend giving it a try

Thank you to Jaq Evans, @netgalley and @_mira_books_

I received this book in exchange for a honest review from NetGalley.

Overall this book was pretty mediocre for me. I really likes the diversity representation and the spookiness of the story but I felt like the author did not know how they wanted to end the story and really rushed the ending. Even thought the ending wasn't the strongest for me I really liked the rest of the story. I like the back and forth point of view and the mystery of it all. I also thought the way that the conflict resolved was interesting but could have had a better story to explain it.

Brigit and her best friend and cameraman, Ian have been making ghost hunting/paranormal podcasts hoping to get some good, honest footage to get their own tv show unfortunately they've been faking their own material so far since they haven't come across any paranormal activity on any of their adventures. When they receive a phone call to investigate a couple gone missing, Ian thinks this could be their big break but Brigit is resistant because it's back in her hometown where her older sister mysteriously died in the some forest that these teens went missing.

Unbeknownst to the paranormal team something dark and ancient resides in those woods and has been waiting for Bright for a long, long time!


The premise of the book sounded so appealing and scary that I couldn't wait to read it. The book did have a lot of spooky atmospheric settings and the writing was enjoyable so I really wanted to love this story unfortunately it just didn't work for me. Ian and Brigit's characters seemed very immature for their ages and many of their actions were confusing at times so I wasn't able to connect to them. There were some entertaining moments but too many unanswered questions by the end of the book and the the tension and scare factor just missed the mark for me although I think think this book may appeal to some other readers especially young adults.

I want to thank the publisher "Harlequin Trade Publishing - Mira" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this story and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!

I have given a rating of 2 1/2 MISSING 🌟🌟🌟 STARS!!

I wanted to like this one, but unfortunately, it's not for me.
It was started with creepy paranormal stuff and I really like it, then I got confused, then it takes turn where I'm not a fan of and left me with a lot of questions unanswered and I can't connect with main characters.
So overall, I didn't enjoy it, but it's just me, if you find this book intriguing, try it, maybe you will like it more than I do

DNF this one pretty early on, I unfortunately just couldn’t get into this I think it just wasn’t for me.

Sixteen years ago, Bridget lost her sister. In the weeks leading up to her disappearance, people said she was troubled, and she was convinced there was a monster in the woods. Then, one night she went in and never returned. Bridget left and now travels around the country with her cameraman, Ian, investigating (and faking) paranormal investigations. When she receives a phone call from home, she gets drawn into disappearances eerie similar to her sister’s. Maybe there is a monster in Ellis Creek, and Brigit is finally to finish what she and Emma started all those years ago.

This was a dark read, but I really enjoyed it. It tackles monsters, self-discovery, self-loathing, and ultimately, self-acceptance. There are queer characters across the gender and sexuality spectrums. It moves quickly and keeps things intriguing until the very end.

A fake spiritualist returns to her childhood home to confront the ghosts of her broken childhood

One of the Amazon blurbs for What Grows in the Dark, opens with “The Babadook meets The Blair Witch Project,” which is one of the biggest oversells I have come across in a while. This debut, from Jaq Evans, is a solid read which shows promise, but linking first time novelists to all-time masterpieces might sound like a cool marketing technique, but ultimately it does not do them that much good. Living up to such hype is impossible.

What Grows in the Dark has a fascinating opening hook but fails to deliver on that early promise. The story is populated with unlikable characters and muddled plot shifts which made little sense, backed up by a supernatural entity which failed to engage, threaten, or scare. The main character is clearly suffering from the traumatic effects of a childhood incident, and a major part of the plot is how she copes with this when she returns to her childhood home of Ellis Creek. This was a significantly more interesting thread than the vagueness of the monsters which might lurk in the trees and how it connects to the disappearances the plot revolves around.

Brigit Weylan is the young woman suffering from the lingering trauma of her elder sister Emma disappearing in the local forest, known as The Dell, sixteen years earlier, whilst playing a childhood game together. When the novel opens Brigit receives a phone call from a former friend of her dead sister, who claims there have been two other disappearances remarkably similar to her Emma, and could she return home to help.

This is where things get interesting, but the execution of the novel fails to do the clever idea justice. Why should Brigit be able to help with the disappearances? Since graduating college Brigit has been working as a fake spiritualist with her best friend Ian (the camera operator) and has been cleansing houses, posting YouTube videos and effectively grifting their way across the country. I thought this ‘grift’ had a lot of plot milage, but it went unexplored and instead we head into haunted forest territory. Even more significant, we find out that Brigit uses the fake ‘spirit’ of Emma as a guide (I thought this was neat, unnerving, and slightly sinister) to help her cleanse the places she visits. It was a shame this did not play a bigger part in the novel, if you are expecting fake seances and Lorraine Warren style theatrics, then you will be disappointed.

Returning to any childhood home and its special memories (good and bad) is always unsettling and What Grows in the Dark does an excellent job of creating an edgy atmosphere, with Brigit being hit by memories or flashbacks around every corner. This is amplified by weird dreams, visions and hearing Emma’s distant voice on her phone. Brigit did not have a particularly happy childhood, being gay in a small conservative town was tough and the novel has great wider LGBTQIA+ representation. Emma’s old friend, who initially contacts Brigit, does not realise she is a fake spiritualist and that was another angle which caught my attention, as everybody seemed so gullible.

The two narratives of ‘Brigit’ and ‘Ian’ were peppered with flashbacks and the occasional news report from the earlier disappearances. However, I found the Brigit and Ian voices to be incredibly similar and I occasionally forget which narrative I was following. Also, I did not think switching between Brigit and Ian as narrators was necessary, since it is supposed to be about Brigit’s past, with Ian being more of a support character. For much of the time the story comes across as a thriller, subdued for extended periods, before going full blown horror in the final 25%.

The supernatural element of the story was ultimately very generic, broadly falling into the folk horror category and considering there was such a big build up; the reader deserved an explanation about why the woods were haunted, which wasn’t forthcoming. But if you like creepy forests and unnamed entities which lurk within, What Grows in the Dark is still worth a look, with much circling back to childhood and Brigit being forced to confront the secrets she’s been running from for the last sixteen years.

I read an eARC of What Grows in the Dark by Jaq Evans. Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing.

I have mixed feelings about this book. In some ways, it had the effect of pulling me in, especially when the chapters were from Brigit's point of view. On the other hand, the book could draw out an uninteresting moment or put a chapter from her work partner’s point of view, that I did not care for. It also danced around the point a lot of times in order to create those mysteries, which instead of drawing me in, bored me to tears, to the point that I didn’t care about the reveal of what it would be by the end of the book. Which was good, because the ending just sort of went splat for me at the end.

Still, there was something there that kept me reading, I just wish it wasn’t bogged down by so much muck.

This book was a slog. The premise was interesting. I wanted to read it! But we spend SO much time reading everyone’s thoughts, that it impacted the momentum of the story.

Jaq Evans’s book sets up stakes that are so fascinating - I love small town horror, and I love paranormal investigators/film crews serving as our protagonists in horror. The premise for this one sounded right up my alley in terms of paranormal horror that I enjoy.

What Grows in the Dark was a little unevenly paced to start. In the first few chapters, I kept feeling like I was reading book two in a series with references to information I should already be familiar with. Once Ian and Brigit get to Brigit’s hometown, the pacing greatly improves with each chapter, but this was a struggle initially to get invested in. I think this might have been also due to the fact that Ian and Brigit switch narration often, and I don’t think that was necessarily needed in this story.

There are a lot of characters introduced, and almost all of them have one syllable names. It was hard for me to keep all of the side characters straight at first. This could just be the way that Evans world-builds, and perhaps what doesn’t work for me narratively will really work for someone else. The prose had more telling through characters internal thoughts than showing, which is not my preference for narrative.

What I do love is the queer cast of characters, both main and side characters. We have general queer rep, non-binary rep, trans rep, sapphic rep, with a lot of diversity in the way these characters are portrayed. I enjoy reading about queer characters where queerness is a part of their identity, but not the plot. Our main character uses any pronouns, but is referred to as "she" in the book, there are several side characters that are sapphic, there is a transmasc side character as well. As a queer horror fan, it’s nice to read about characters that just so happen to be queer experiencing paranormal things. The horror comes from the woods - not homophobia.

The description of the forest and its horrors is pretty eerie - I definitely enjoyed the latter half of the book with the focus on entering the forest. The ending is a bit chaotic and things aren’t fully explained at the end; I don’t think horror novels necessarily need to be wrapped up in a bow at the end but it is worth noting. Overall - this was an ambitious debut novel and I look forward to seeing what Evans has to offer the genre in the future!

I tore through this book, and although it started out promising I gotta say after the buildup the ending was kind of disappointing to me. The writing was great with good flow, and I enjoyed the add ins of letters and documentation.

Thanks to NetGalley and MIRA for this ARC!

Wow!! This was scary and perfectly entrancing!! The imagery gave off gothic vibes and I was captivated by these characters. I’ve been reading a lot of horror lately and this one is really unique with memorable characters.

I love a good horror-slash-thriller! Creepy, spooky woods are the perfect backdrop for a hauntingly delicious novel! Mix what happened 16 years ago with present day when two teens go missing, it's time to explore the woods once more! The woods are the perfect place - they can hold your secrets forever, or whisper them to anyone who will listen.

This isn't one to stay up late at night and read if you're easily spooked. The writing is definitely detailed enough to get your heart racing!

I didn't enjoy this book, I'm guessing it wasn't my genre. I like mystery but this one was just outside the realm of possibility of real life, which I do not usually read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the eARC.

This book's premise had me so excited. But the story did not "get there" for me. I found the characters to be underwhelming and I felt like there were too many things left unresolved.

Brigit and Ian are living that scammer life. Friends since college and now business partners, Brigit and Ian go from town to town, city to city as the Temu Ed & Lorraine Warren. Yes, they are connecting with ghosts, casting them out of homes, and putting it all on YouTube for profit. While their “gifts” are questionable, the money is not, so they keep their grift going.

But one day Brigit gets a call from her hometown asking for her help. Two teenagers have gone missing in the same woods where her sister died 16 years ago and they need her to use her gifts to connect with them or whatever’s in the woods and bring them home. Brigit is hesitant but this contact promised to pay them well and so off they go. But no sooner than she steps foot in her hometown do weird, creepy, and horrendous stuff start to happen. She knows that she escaped this town and those woods once before but she may not be so lucky this time.

This story provided some amazing spine tingling scenes. I was literally shook. I loved how the sinister elements bled seamlessly into the real world and left me unsettled and questioning everything. I also appreciate the diversity in the book! There were BIPOC, non-binary, and transgender characters and it wasn’t used as some moral plot point it was simply diversity and that was so refreshing.

However, the plot, character development, and writing were not as strong as I would have liked. There was an overuse of metaphors that got really confusing for me several times. And the ending was unsatisfying for me. Something felt very hollow about this story, like, what was it all for?

Between a 2.5 or 3 for me.

What Grows in the Dark is a debut novel by Jaq Evans, released on March 5. The viewpoint characters are Brigit and Ian, a phony spiritualist and her cameraman who’ve been hoping to make it big with their “paranormal investigations” videos. But it gets all too real for both of them when they’re drawn to a missing-persons case in the hometown that she had fled years ago, after her troubled sister’s apparent suicide. Not only is Brigit forced to confront her traumatic memories, and the role she played in past events, but she, Ian, and several other people come to realize that much more than psychological horror is happening in the woods outside this small town, and reaching inside it to affect generations.

There are flashbacks, a plethora of secrets, unspoken romantic entanglements, and struggles with grief and guilt, yet somehow Evans weaves everything together smoothly and keeps it all moving swiftly. I’m a bit frustrated by some of the choices that characters take, and it seems apparent that even darker consequences may lie ahead in the future, but I can at least understand why those decisions were made. Overall, it’s an eerily intense book, and I’ll be interested to see what comes in the future from Evans.

I chose this book due to its interesting premise and because I was trying to challenge myself to read more books outside of my comfort zone. It was described as a contemporary horror novel, and I regularly read and enjoy thrillers, so I decided to give it a go.

Unfortunately this was a struggle to get through. I put it down several times over the course of two months and read several other books in the interim. The three main issues were:
1) The two main characters, one male and one female, were not well developed and seemed interchangeable.
2) There were so many typos (every page) and instances of poor sentence structure that it was difficult to actually read the book.
3) The entire plot device of the woods being haunted was never explained.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my feedback.