I really wanted to like this book, but it just didn't grab me like I'd hoped. I loved the premise of the phony spiritualist hiding secrets about her past returning to her hometown. The author does a fabulous job setting an atmospheric scene. I also liked Ian and was glad the author decided to add his POV (it was mentioned in the author notes at the end). What didn't work for me was the pacing and the lack of an origin of the evil in the forest. Why was it haunted? The amount of exposition during conversations or an action scene was disjointed and took me out of the story.

I was provided an ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

This got off to a pretty slow start. At about the 40% mark, I switched to the audiobook which I found helped keep me engaged with the slower pacing of the book. This book left me with the following questions "What just happened?" and "What did I just read?" This was extremely atmospheric and the slow burn pacing builds up to what I was expecting to be an explosive ending. Unfortunately this was lacking in the action and I was slightly disappointed with the ending as I still don't understand what happened. I listened to the ending twice and reread the last few chapters and I'm still left confused about what really happened. Maybe that was by design and it does feel intentional. The author did a good job building up the creepy woods factor and the ominous presence therein. I thought the worldbuilding was good and the descriptions of what Brigit and the characters were seeing and experiencing was done very well. It added to the spooky vibe of the book.

This follows Brigit and Ian, who are trying to make it big by filming encounters with the paranormal. Brigit claims to have abilities as a spiritualist, and Ian is her tech crew. They do pretty well supporting themselves and giving people a sense of piece with their ruse, but when an old acquaintance from her hometown calls, Brigit is forced to face things from her childhood that she has kept buried. Each one of the characters in this book is connected in some way to Brigit, her late sister, or the two kids that have recently gone missing. Brigit and Ian have agreed to use their talents to try to help find the newly missing kids and uncover what is really going on in the woods around Ellis Creek.

I think my biggest issue was the writing style. This alternates in POV from Brigit and Ian. Brigit is obviously struggling to come to grips with the loss of her sister and diving into this investigation is bringing up memories and emotions that she has kept bottled up. Ian on the other hand is drawn to Brigit and just wants to be near her and know her. Once they arrive in Ellis Creek there are alot of characters to keep track of each with their own plotline and tie to the creepy woods. I had a hard time keeping track of how everyone was connected. That paired with the slower pace of the book made it hard for me to stay engaged. I did find that switching to the audiobook helped navigate the slower pace for me.

Overall, if you are looking for a slow burn horror/thriller that is very atmospheric and set in some creepy woods this is a good book to check out. It has alot of character trauma to sort through and a fairly diverse cast.

Sixteen years ago, Brigit Wylan's sister Emma walked into the forest and committed suicide. Now Brigit is investigating paranormal activity, sometimes faking results. She never expected a call from her hometown regarding missing children who had dreamed of Emma in the forest. Brigit and her cameraman Ian are now investigating, getting drawn deeper into it. She can't explain what's happening to her, as she sees trees in her room at night, hears laughter and Emma on the phone. Emma might have been right about a monster in town, and it's been waiting for Brigit to come home.

Brigit doesn't tell Ian much if anything about her relationship with Emma before leaving her hometown. The two work a grift, hoping to create a show out of it. Preteens and teens have been going missing or dying in the same stretch of forest for decades before Emma’s death. The birch trees are figuring into nightmares the teens had before disappearing, and now that Brigit is back, she has them, too. She doesn't say anything, as it's hard to be back in town, and she's not sure if she's losing her mind. The paranormal activity in town is subtle, and she no longer has an insider's perspective.

The dual perspective of Brigit and Ian as they start investigating the missing teens and trying to figure out what's really happening helps with the story. Brigit is more than willing to forget the past, so even in her chapters it dribbles out and seems like she's an unreliable narrator. Ian becomes our reliable one, the stranger looking in on small-town shenanigans. The other people in town have their quirks, and few people really understand that there is a presence in the woods, and its presence gets more malevolent and creepy. It doesn't care about people or humans but has the desire to be recognized, just as humans do. Its true purpose might never be known, but the horror ratchets up at the end and keeps you guessing what would happen next. The tension in the novel really digs into you and is haunting in its own way.

What Grows in the Dark is an other-worldly and dark horror novel. Readers should be aware of a Content Warning of suicide before delving into this grotesque world.

Sixteen years ago, Brigit Weylan’s older sister, Emma, walked into the woods and never came back. Accepting her sister as dead, Brigit leaves Ellis Creek as soon as she can. Now Brigit travels around the country investigating paranormal activity with her cameraman, Ian. The twist? She’s just another sham and feels no guilt about it. But when her reputation for being a ghost hunter gets back to Ellis Creek, Brigit gets pulled back in. Something strange is going on in that forest where her sister disappeared, and more teens are disappearing. When Brigit starts to see and hear hallucinations, she realizes the paranormal is real. And it’s not happy with her.
The first half of the novel is perfectly paced and enjoyable. There is some mystery, and I want to read more and find out what’s going on. Plus, I loved the idea that karma was coming after someone who had been faking talking to ghosts. But at the halfway point the book turns incredibly violent. This is also where the book turns into chaos.
Plot elements explode and stack on top of each other. Jaq Evan’s writing style becomes frantic. Without true quiet moments, readers don’t have a chance to truly understand what is going on or why before they are thrown into something else that hasn’t been fully explained. Even the ending didn’t clear everything up. All this is exacerbated by an overpopulation of characters with unclear motivations.
Brigit has no pro-nouns, and our written language is not ready for that it seems. This is reflective of the author’s own pronouns. Evans used “she” for lack of a better choice. This seems weird but using the character's name over and over would have slogged the book down.
I see great potential for Evans in horror though a true grasp of pacing and character growth/inclusion will be a hurdle.

Brigit and Ian have a small Youtube channel where they hunt ghosts and solve paranormal problems. It’s all fake, of course, but it brings in the views and gives them enough money to keep on keeping on. The pair met in college and just … clicked. There’s a lot unsaid between them, a lot of looks, quiet moments, and the weight of their pasts — Ian and his abusive father; Brigit and her dead sister. Life might have continued with the two of them going from mark to mark, visiting people who just wanted to go viral, to be noticed, to be listened to … until Alicia Nguyen calls, begging for their help and offering a great deal of money if Brigit will just come home.

Ellis Creek is a small town where everyone knows everyone else; they all go to the same school, the same churches, and the same grocery stores. They know who’s cheating on their husband, who drinks too much, and who got caught (and who didn’t). It’s the town where Brigit grew up. It’s where her sister, Emma, died. It’s a town full of ghosts and memories and now, two lost children who dreamed of Emma before vanishing into the woods. Brigit can’t say no. Whether it’s the money, the need for closure, guilt or grief, or something else, Brigit can’t say no. So, with Ian and his camera at her side, Brigit goes home.

Maybe she shouldn’t have.

The trees are whispering, laughing, watching. Is there something in the woods, waiting for Brigit? Or is it her own mind, lost in memories of the past and missing a sister who died too soon?

The title of this book is a bit on the nose, considering the themes within the story and the characters drawn into the tangled nest of madness, grief, and isolation. There’s Sam, the transgender man who refuses to be a martyr, who only wants to live his life in a small, insular town. We have the bartender, Max, who doesn’t want to get involved in someone else’s life. And Alicia, who before she was the only woman (and an Asian woman at that) on her small police force had a girlfriend who suffered from self harm and fits of mania and despair, a girlfriend she broke up with days before her death, and Alicia carries the guilt of what she didn’t do and didn’t say. And there is Lacey, the waitress who is the friend of one of the missing teenagers, who has her own secrets.

And then there’s Brigit, who is a chaotic mess of manipulation, isolation, defensiveness, and fear and who doesn’t want to know what she doesn’t know, who doesn’t want to poke at the dark spaces in her memory for fear of what she might find. It’s not just the missing children, or the looks from people she grew up with and left behind. It’s the dreams that haunt her at night of white birches in the moonlight, and phone calls that leave no sign of ever having happened except in her mind. It’s laughter on the wind that sounds like her sister, and a forest where time and space seem like mere suggestions rather than something that can be measured and counted.

This is a book very heavy on mood and vibe, and will make for a perfect autumn read. However, while the tone and atmosphere are wonderfully effective and the Dell, the mysterious forest, is a strong and creepy character on its own, there is some fuzziness in the human characters. Brigit’s voice, in her POV chapters, is strong and lyrical as she wonders at her own sanity. However, when the chapter moves to Ian’s point of view, the voice remains almost the same, but instead of wondering at Brigit’s sanity, it’s Ian’s wistful and heartfelt attention to Brigit. The line of her neck, the shape of her smile, how lost and lonely she looks. The voices sound so very similar, and both have the same fixed attention on Brigit.

The side characters are sketches, albeit sketches with nice thick lines, but they’re mostly interchangeable. I appreciate that every scene in this book is to a purpose, every chapter ties into the next, and every plot point follows from the one before with the story feeling honest and truthful from start to finish. The book is written almost as though it’s a movie, with many shots set up and framed in a very visual manner. As someone who likes horror movies, this book worked for me on so many levels and the ending, while perhaps not as dramatic as I would have personally liked, fits the quiet and overall melancholy feel of the book.

This isn’t really a love story, though. I think it’s clear that Ian loves Brigit and she, in turn, loves him. It doesn’t feel like a romance as much as a deep bond, like two people who each found their other half. It could be read as a romance if you’re so inclined, though. The writing is good, the pace is smooth and focused, and I am left wanting more — and looking forward to more from the author. I highly recommend this story if you’re into creepy woods and gothic horror.

Brigit and Ian have a good thing going. It isn't great, yet, but someday soon they'll be famous and land a regular TV show. What do they do? They're paranormal con artists. They take on cases and then record themselves dealing with the hauntings. They have a little help from Brigit’s older sister, Emma, who years ago walked into the woods and didn't walk back out.

How can Emma be helping you might ask? Easy, she isn't. Ian records while Brigit pretends to call on Emma to help with the investigations. The plan works until they receive a phone call asking to help with a case back home. As that case evolves it feels more and more like Emma's.

History either repeats itself or echoes, and whatever is growing in the dark of the woods might actually be part of a pattern going back generations.

Before Emma disappeared, she was convinced there was a monster in the woods. Emma may have been troubled, as people claimed, but the woods may hold the secret to what was troubling her.

With small town drama so real it reminds you why you don't move back to your childhood town, to creepy vibes from the woods we know so well, this story lures us in then ambushes us leaving us to reflect on themes like family, loyalty, grief, and guilt.

Jaq Evan’s What Grows In The Dark is waiting for you, just like the woods have waited for Brigit.

You will not be able to put this one down!! What a fabulous debut from Jaq Evans! This story is told through different POVs which allows it to take you on a paranormal thrill ride. It constantly had me second-guessing everything, and the plot twist caught me totally off guard. I can’t wait to read more from her in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin Trafe Publishing for a copy of this ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book officially publishes on 3/5/24!

This book plays into a common horror trope: the woods, especially at night. Throughout, this made me loosely think of the movie “The Blair Witch Project”, as it follows a duo who records their projects to create a paranormal show online. Told through 2 POVs, I found one of the POVs to not really add much to the story with the exception of one scene. The other characters, although present, felt like they weren’t fully formed for me and were just present during certain scenes without much explanation. The ending also felt a little chaotic and missed the mark based on the plot’s buildup to me. I didn’t find this story to be particularly scary, but would be a good novel for anyone looking to get into the horror genre.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for a copy of What Grows in the Dark!

This one follows a paranormal investigator, Brigit, who is brought back to her home town to investigate a case that eerily similar to the case of her dead sister.

Despite the concept being right up my alley, this was a dnf for me. 26% in and I really felt like I was slowly slogging through and having to push myself to be interested in anything that was happening.

I could see people really enjoying this one - and maybe I’ll give it another try in the future, but as of right now I think it would be a disservice to myself and the book to try and push through!

3.5 star read - loved the setting and the vibes. I did guess some aspects of the book but it was still a super entertaining read. It’s a medium paced, medium/long chapter mystery. Not much else I can say without spoilers!

Book: What Grows in the Dark
Author: Jaq Evans
Rating: 3 Out of 5 Stars

I want to thank the publisher, Mira, for sending me an ARC. I honestly did not hate this book. I think it has a lot of good bones, but it is just not the book for me. It’s not a terrible book, but it's just a miss for me.

In this one, we follow Brigid and Ian, who run a YouTube channel that looks into paranormal activity. They travel the country looking for the next big thing and their big break. Brigid has done everything in her power to stay away from her hometown, where things went wrong so long ago. Then, she gets a call from her hometown. Strange things are happening there and two teenagers are missing. She doesn’t want to go back, but Ian does. When they arrive in Ellis Creek, they quickly come to see that things are bad and that history may be repeating itself. On top of that, Brigid starts to hear things. She hears a familiar laughter and her dead sister is calling her. There is a monster here and it’s been waiting on Brigrid.

This set-up is amazing. We have a main character who has a past and is running away from it. We don’t know why and we don’t know what is going on. Is it human? Is it something not part of this world? We don’t know. All we know is that something is happening here and it is bad. We also know that our main character is hiding something from us. I am here for this. I love it whenever we have a small town with secrets and a main character who does not want those secrets to get out. This set-up never gets old for me. Add in the creepy writing and backdrop and there’s nothing like it.

The idea of a small town with secrets also never gets old. We know that something is going on. This town has a history of things not appearing as they should. People also tend to disappear here. the only time something is done about it is if that person is part of a certain social group. This is true in real like small towns too. No one wants to admit it. There is also a woods that holds secrets. People have been known to go in there and never come out. People who do come out also add very strange. This all happens at night. During the day, it seems rather safe. Again, this adds so much to the story.

Sadly, the setting was not enough to make up for some things. I found the characters to be rather difficult to make a connection with. I did enjoy Ian’s character and I thought he was well done. The rest of them, I don’t know. It felt like something was missing from them. I needed a little bit more from them. They felt underdeveloped. There are also different points of view, but, again, the lack of development made it difficult to tell whose voice we had.

This sense of disconnect did pull me out of the story. That is one of the most important things to me as a reader. For me to be invested in the story, I have to feel something. I have to have a connection with both the characters and the plot. Otherwise, it will make me lower my rating and not have a great time with the book.

Overall, I thought this was an okay read. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it.

This book comes out on March 5, 2024.

We follow Brigit, a fake psychic, who uses the death of her sister from 16 years to con people into thinking she can connect to spirits. Ian, a “friend” and con partner, find themselves back in Brigit’s hometown after being called by a lead detective in a case. Once there, strange things start happening and it all leads back to the woods.

This unfortunately did not hold my attention like I thought it would. It was a wild and creepy ride, for sure. But I found myself constantly being frustrated by the characters. Loved the LGBTQ representation throughout!

I am so thankful to HTP, Jaq Evans, and Netgalley for granting me advanced access to this laughable yet suspenseful novel before it hits shelves on March 5, 2024. I was such a fan of the prose and can't wait for others to check this one out.

A creepy paranormal novel about a woman who finds herself questioning what really happened to her sister in the woods. Emma disappeared and Brigit took off. Now, Brigit and her cameraman Ian are paranormal investigators who mostly fake things. Is someone faking calls from Emma? And how is she connected to the disappearance of two teens in the present? It's all about the trees. This is muddled in spots but it shows potential. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. For horror fans.

Thank you, NetGalley, for early access to this book.
What Grows in the Dark is a spooky thriller that made my skin crawl.
I enjoyed the dual point of view, getting to experience things from Brigit and Ian's perspectives. It made me more invested, wanting to understand the mystery of Ellis Creek. And the use of interludes to provide expository information moved the story along without bogging down the plot.
This book often gave me "Blair Witch Project" vibes, making me wonder what was in the Dell and how it connected all these people.
Through the mystery and hair-raising moments, What Grows in the Dark answers a basic question: What would you do to protect the people you care about?
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes horror, characters who recognize and own their flaws, and thinking about the creepy and ancient things that live in the woods of their small town.

Thank you to #NetGalley, Jaq Evans and Harlequin Trade Publishers for the opportunity to read What Grows in the Dark, to be published 5 March 2024. 4/5 Stars for this supernatural suspense thriller. Even though this is not my general genre of choice, this novel held my attention throughout. Told by different POVs, this was a virtual character study that kept on giving. Great read. #NetGalley #HarlequinTradePublications #JaqEvans #WhatGrowsintheDark.

A fake paranormal “expert” dives into the case of two missing girls and finds more than she bargained for. This was more mystery than horror, though it did have some great creepy moments more toward the conclusion. I loved the folk horror aspect of this, and although the characters are not very likable I still wanted to see what happened. I think this was a decent read and I would try other books by the author. Thanks for the opportunity to read!

A paranormal investigator travels back to her hometown to be part of an investigation into missing teen girls, but finds parallels with her sister’s death from years ago.

I wanted to like this one, but it was missing the spooky vibes I wanted based on the premise. I also don’t think switching between Brigit and Ian as narrators worked well since it is supposed to be about Brigit’s past. I also think there was a lot unresolved throughout the book here. Great premise, but it just didn’t meet my expectations.

For the first half of the read, this felt like a pretty straightforward mystery. Brigit and Ian were investigating by non-paranormal means such as interviewing locals and doing some research at the local library. As the plot progressed, the horror elements came in and slowly escalated until by the last 75%, we were in a straight up horror movie and it was fantastic. Evans does a great job of using the horror elements to heighten the emotional points of the plot. This makes the stakes feel so much greater and I found myself holding my breath while reading because I was so stressed about these characters. The mystery investigation was well done and I really enjoyed that it was equally rooted in the regular investigation as well as the paranormal investigation.

The actual horror elements were pretty solid in the folk horror category - complete with creepy forests and unnamed entities within. As mentioned above, the horror creeps into this read in bits and pieces. The first few times, it is easy to chalk it up to Brigit maybe being mentally impacted by being back in her hometown after so long or the trauma of losing her sister resurfacing. For a while, I was wondering if this would turn into an unreliable narrator read where we aren't sure if the horrors are real or imagined. The scene where the horror elements were solidified as being real is a scene I'm not going to forget soon. I'm not sure if the folk horror entity in this read is based on any real local legends, but it was very unique and Evans fleshed out the lore and rules surrounding it very well.

Brigit and Ian were wonderfully complex characters and I loved getting both of their POVs. For me, most reads are pretty easy to label as either character-driven or plot-driven. In this case, I think Evans does a great job of balancing both of these aspects. We certainly get a lot of character work but the mystery investigation plot is also very well developed. We are dropped into this read in the middle of Brigit and Ian working a job and the plot takes off from there. We don't get much of any sort of summary of their relationship or history - rather, Evans sprinkles in details throughout the story and by the end we have such a great understanding of them as individual characters as well as their relationship. All of the side characters we see, as well, are incredibly detailed and complex.

Overall, this was a fantastic read and one I don't think I'll forget about easily. Complex characters, good mystery plot, and great horror elements. I'd love to read more from Evans in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley and MIRA for the ARC. Expected publication date is March 5, 2024

Crime, supernatural, monster mashup with lots of LGBTQ+ characters. Picked up for the rep, and that I like the trope of kids mysteriously disappearing from small towns. Thought our main characters being YouTube ghost hunters sounded fun, and I usually like anything with townies.

Sadly, this became a situation of the execution not living up to the premise. I felt like the author struggled to weave the plot through on page action, and instead relied heavily on explaining events via the internal thoughts of each character. I rarely find tell not show storytelling compelling, and it felt especially out of place in this type of horror/thriller. In my opinion, the writing was not where it needed to be to make this story appealing to adult readers. There are tons of ideas in this book, but none were given the care and breathing room to take on much nuance or complexity. For that reason, it felt much more like a popcorn YA type read.

Even though this fell short for me, I think I'd still recommend for younger readers who like the tropes, or for those looking for queer characters, but where their sexuality isn't the main focus of the story.