I read another book by this author that was an easy five stars for me, so I was thrilled to see her new release on NetGalley and immediately requested it.

There's so much to like about this novel - mysterious desert town, a creepy, abandoned hotel, ghost hunters, colorful town residents, and a teenage psychic. Quinn and his older brother are on their own after their grandmother passed away. Due to financial constraints, they're on the verge of losing the home they inherited. Jobs are scarce in the small town of Gypsum, so Quinn gives rock-climbing lessons to the occasional tourist and tells their futures by reading tea leaves in the cup his grandmother used to predict the future. "Magic" runs in their family, but can also be dangerous. Quinn is a very likeable MC who shoulders more responsibilities and worries than anyone his age should have to deal with. He and his brother have their squabbles, but it's clear they care about each other.

This story oozes atmosphere with its small desert town, memorable residents, and abandoned hotel with an ominous history - it put me in the mind of Stephen King novels. Even the "villain" gave me those vibes. The opening scene with Quinn, Selena, and June nosing around the hotel at night is filled with tension, and the paranormal happenings had me grinning in excitement. The author does a fantastic job at setting the stage, and my eyes happily widened in horror over some of the descriptions - shared creepy dreams, a safe that moves on its own and contains shocking contents, trips to the other side. A lot of unexplained things are happening in the town of Gypsum, and Quinn, June, and Selena discover they're more involved than they ever imagined.

This is categorized as horror/paranormal, but I'd say it's more of a thriller with horror elements - that's just me. Recommended for readers who enjoy a menacing atmosphere, generational secrets, and spine-tingling scenes.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This is a fascinating YA book that doesn't pull its punches but will linger with you for ages past the last page. The writing was so good, sparse and intricate at the same time, and the character development and plotting were so addictively good.

A decent YA spooky story. It wasn't really horror per-say but there were glimmers of horrors. The monster did not show up on page often and those parts were done well. I did expect more horror but it was solid story with characters and a town that you wanted to save.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This isn't as much of a horror story as I was expecting it to be; the horror is much more left to the imagination, but I didn't find it scary? I think my biggest issue with the book is that it's as if we start in the middle, and then go backwards? The three central characters, in the first chapter, end up at this abandoned hotel they are all having reoccurring dreams of; then they leave and go back to their lives and don't end up back at this hotel for ages and ages, and it just felt pretty disjointed?

I liked the characters, particularly our narrator, Quinn, and you really feel his love for the town they all live in and how much he wants to protect the people - I just never fully connected to the story. I think this definitely will appeal to some readers, it just didn't quite work for me.

Sweetest Darkness is a thrilling blend of supernatural suspense! If you enjoy haunted hotels, teen psychics, ghost hunters, and spooky mysteries, this is a must-read. The story kicks off with a slow burn, shifting to a lot of intense action and doesn't let up. Without revealing too much, the supernatural elements are woven together in captivating ways, leaving you both curious and anxious for the characters.

The eerie West Texas desert and the abandoned Alvarado hotel make for a vivid setting, almost like characters themselves. The author brings the town of Gypsum to life, and the atmosphere is steeped in mystery and suspense.

The plot follows three teens—Quinn, Selena, and June—drawn to a crumbling hotel through shared dreams. Quinn's psychic powers and the town’s dark secrets create a tension that builds throughout the novel. While it's not full of traditional horror elements, the book’s focus on suspense gives it a “cozy horror” vibe that’s perfect for younger YA readers.

The characters are well-developed, with Quinn’s psychic abilities taking center stage. His relationship with his friends, his brother Ollie, town mysteries, and hidden truths create an engaging narrative. Though the supernatural threat isn't as prominent as expected, the depth and slow-burn tension keep the story gripping.

This book was well-written with an interesting premise. It also ended up being a skim read for me. I kept waiting for it to fully pull me in and it just never happened. I liked the characters though and I can definitely see how the story would be more appealing to other readers.

I read an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All comments are my own.

Excellent book, loved it! Looking forward to more from this author! Apologies for the lateness of my review

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc<3
3.5⭐️
I really enjoyed being thrown into the action immediately with our MC Quinn and his friends/ cousin June and Selena entering the haunted Alvarado Hotel after all having the same dream about it. This story was immediately interesting and continued to build intrigue for most of the book. I enjoyed Quinn’s psychic abilities and seeing how they were expanded upon throughout.
I think where this started to fall a little bit short for me was when we were introduced to a certain character and given a bit of history into the lore of the town. I think the “big bad” in this book was very ambitious and just didn’t seem completely realized to me. The situation becomes all encompassing and I felt like I was missing some important explanation or background of the antagonist which made the final stretch kind of confusing and hard to connect to. Overall I think the author did an amazing job at keeping me interested in figuring out this mystery, but I think the actual mystery could have used a little added details. A fun time nonetheless!

A teenaged psychic having bizarre dreams, a mysterious safe, a dying Texas town, and a terrifying hotel come together to make Sweetest Darkness, a YA thriller/horror novel that's a little slow on the pacing end. It has an interesting premise, but the pacing makes it hard to get into.

Sweetest Darkness by Leslie Lutz is a hauntingly beautiful novel that explores themes of grief, love, and the complexities of human connections. The story follows a young protagonist who must navigate the shadows of her past while confronting her own inner demons. Lutz’s lyrical writing style captivates readers, blending magical realism with emotional depth. The vivid imagery and intricate character relationships make this a compelling read for those who enjoy dark yet enchanting narratives that linger long after the last page.

This was such a nice read.
The mystery gets you immersed so deeply in this town, with its ghost hotel and deep lore, and all it's weird residents and how they all connect to each other.

You just can't stop reading to know what will happen next.

On a dark night in Gypsum, Texas a shared recurring dream has drawn teenagers Quinn, Selena, and June to the abandoned Hotel Alvarado in search of answers. Once a stop for the rich and famous, it now draws thrill seekers and ghost hunters and pulses with disturbing energy. While the teens don’t have a clear idea of what they will find, what unfolds is a mystery that has spun generations and links Gypsum to an ancient force that brings destruction to everything it touches. Quinn has been called by something worse—a predatory, inhuman entity that threatens to wipe Gypsum off the map, along with everyone in it. And wrongly—accidentally—he's let it out. It takes the shape of a handsome young man. It walks. It talks. It laughs. It can even make you laugh. But its appetite for death can never be sated. Quinn has always had the power to see the future. Can he find the power to change it?

The author has written a maze of excitement and horror, which speeds up to a breakneck pace then winds down. . The historical plot and journal entries throughout the story are illuminating. The teens try to piece together what is happening and to save the day. The author captures both the magic and angst of life as a teenager, with Quinn being forced to try and solve problems way beyond his ability while at the same time, struggling to hold on to some of his innocence. With his world spiraling out of control, one kiss with Selena can make it all disappear, at least for a while.
The story weaves in a number of supernatural elements that should appeal to fans of the genre. Many characters have psychic or perceptive abilities that initially defy explanation, and the spookiness of the Hotel Alvarado is an immediate draw as a location. The supernatural being that Quinn and his friends encounter effectively builds tension. I was compelled to read the book as I wanted to understand the Hotel Alvarado and the supernatural being.

Sweetest Darkness is so much more than a YA horror thriller. It is a book about found family, grief, sacrifice and the love of family and friends. Quinn is trying to deal with the grief of losing his parents young and most recently his grandmother that raised him. This has made the relationship between him and his brother more of a father and son instead of brothers. They are having a hard time making ends meet. Quinn and his friends June and Selena have a recurring shared dream about the Alvarado Hotel in town. In the dream there is a safe filled with riches that will solve all of Quinn's problems. Instead what lurks in the safe is something very dangerous. The mystery is so interesting. I love the action and the creepiness. I loved the side characters too. Thank you to NetGalley and Holiday House / Peachtree / Pixel+Ink for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

There is a lot to love here. I found the protagonist, Quinn, very real and easy to root for, the vibes are perfectly spooky, and the setting is very well done. I really appreciated the elements that I don't often see in YA (or books in general for that matter): I've read about small towns before, but never in a desert setting, and I thought the rock-climbing was unique as well.

There were very strong moments in this, times when I was truly wrapped up in the world, but they were a little too sparse for me to enjoy this more. Even though Quinn's characterization is strong, I felt that all the other characters only really exist through *his* relationship with them; they didn't stand as firm characters in their own right. Similarly, as much as I enjoyed the spooky vibes, I felt that the scene-setting and action could've been more tangible. There were multiple scenes where I thought, "Wait, where are we?"

POTENTIONAL SPOILERS: The final strong suit for me was the ending. I appreciated the humanization of the antagonist, and I especially liked the tone of the ending, the fact that Quinn didn't necessarily get everything he wanted but that he wouldn't have done anything differently. For me, this is an enjoyable contrast to the more saccharine happily-ever-after.

Small town mystery featuring a teen psychic with two other teens enter into an abandoned hotel to discover the dark secrets of their town as well as face off against a mysterious supernatural hotel. Quinn is a teen clairvoyant who has been having a reoccurring dream about a mysterious abandoned hotel. Quinn decides to investigate it with his best friends June and Selena. They all have to find a way to stop the evil entity before it destroys their town. Unfortunately this one was a miss for me. I could never really get into the story and just found myself not caring all that much. I tried to get into it but it never really hooked me. While this one wasn't for me if you like horror books do give it a go for spooky season~!

Release Date: September 24,2024

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Holiday House / Peachtree / Pixel+Ink | Holiday House for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

This book is so lovely. Just, all around a very solid, enjoyable horror YA. Lutz clearly has a skill for building tension and knowing how to make her readers feel the dread and uncertainty her characters are feeling. The prose is pitch-perfect: evocative, lyrical, and descriptive without being overwrought. The language feels contemporary and accessible without being gimmicky, and the dialogue feels grounded in a vernacular that is recognizably Texan without being over the top about it. It feels like how my family talks, and that level of casual familiarity made the plot all the more terrifying.

I was also really impressed with the chsracterizations in this book and the grace given for real-feeling, imperfect people doing their best in untenable circumstances. Everyone felt flawed, loveable, grounded, and complex.

Plot-wise, a lot was very strong. The slow death of a town, the dusty, hopeless feeling of trying to fight for somewhere you love even though your ability to fight against systemic change is limited was such a true and realistic subplot to the cosmic horror plot that the pair did enhance each other really well. The eeriness of the Alvarado and the mines, the dreams, dread, and supernatural abilities all felt really creepy and cool.

My criticisms of this one lie in the plot and its antagonist, however. I think this was a situation of getting a REALLY excellent front quarter, but once the cat was out of the proverbial bag, I think Lutz struggled to come up with ways to ratchet up tension that felt cohesive. I think there are a lot of noodles thrown at this wall, and some stick better than others. I think I needed fewer THINGS and more concrete, terrifying details of the things that already existed. I also felt the resolution wasn’t well conceived. I think the personal, character beats were flawless, but the actual solution felt more like a stopgap than a true fix.

Overall, a really good read that left me feeling things and very much a satisfied reader, but it’s not perfect.

Books like this one are why I love YA horror - a read to sink into and enjoy as the horror aspect seeps in, while characters and emotions fall prey to whatever terror waits at the end.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this book. These opinions are completely my own.

I love finding age-appropriate mystery thrillers, and this one fits the bill. It's something I can recommend to a student without question, which is always nice. It did take a minute to feel connected to the characters, but you feel like a fourth member of the team pretty quickly

This novel is the epitome of “The horrors persist but so do I.” – Just that horrors isn’t a metaphor but a reality in this novel. That you get dragged back to that house in Alvarado over and over again. At some point you don’t even know if you ever escape this place.
The novel does really well with making your skin become goosebumps in seconds and wondering if the things you see are real or not.
A super intricate book. Would pick it up again when I am back in a YA horror book phase because I love haunted places and this one just is top notch.

"A teenage psychic is drawn deep into the honeycomb of an abandoned hotel - and into a cat-and-mouse game with a predatory entity - in this riveting new supernatural horror novel.

Everyone in Gypsum, Texas knows the Hotel Alvarado changes at night - especially Quinn. A teenage clairvoyant, he's been having dreams about it... dreams that call him to its dark, abandoned halls. The hotel is a monument to the town's more prosperous past, when celebrities flocked to the mineral spas and films were shot in the desert. The Great Depression killed all of that, it killed the Alvarado, and frankly it killed Gypsum, too. Now, when the sun goes down, things no longer living stir deep within its creaking depths.

But the dreams are relentless. When Quinn braves the hotel's darkness with his best friend June and unrequited love Selena, looking for answers, he gets only one: ghosts aren't the scariest thing lurking inside the Alvarado (although they're there, cold and restless and angry).

No. He's been called by something worse: a predatory, inhuman entity that threatens to wipe Gypsum off the map, along with everyone in it. And wrongly - accidentally - he's let it out. It takes the shape of a handsome young man. It walks. It talks. It laughs. It can even make you laugh. But its appetite for death can never be sated. Quinn has always had the power to see the future... can he find the power to change it?"

People who are psychic should never go into old hotels. Period.