**3.75 Stars**
This story unfolds in a quaint little town with a mysterious atmosphere. The pace was quite slow until around the 80% mark, but it ultimately tells a heartfelt tale about second chances and discovering where you truly belong. I have to admit, the first half dragged a bit. The plot centers on the various enigmas plaguing this small community, particularly those involving James' brother, Johnny.

On the bright side, the latter part of the book truly excels. That’s when James begins to dig deeper and confront the big questions. It raises the timeless issue of whether we ever truly know the people we’re closest to. I found the book quite enjoyable! However, I did think the ending felt a little rushed.

Thank You NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Delacorte Press for allowing me to read this ARC.

4.5! This blend of romance, mystery and suspense is everything I’ve been looking for lately! Sometimes romantic suspense can get a little out there and/ or cheesy but that is not the case for Adrienne Young (of what I’ve read so far). Her prose and settings are beautiful!

I didn’t feel as connected to the story and the main character as I did with the Unmaking of June Farrow but I still inhaled this book and was on the edge of my seat the whole time! I didn’t predict the ending. I loved Micah as well.

This definitely sealed the deal that Adrienne Young is now an auto-buy author for me especially if she continues this blend of genres.

Thank you to the publisher for this ARC!

Really interesting small town mystery with super cozy vibes. I still like Young's other two books better, Spells For Forgetting being my favorite, but this is still a great read. I will say there was not nearly as much 'magical realism' in this as her other books, but I didn't mind that. There were twists and turns but nothing too crazy that made my jaw drop or anything. But overall really enjoyable and I'd still recommend!

A Sea of Unspoken Things
I’m a HUGE Adrienne Young fan. She is an amazing storyteller. While this book took a minute longer to hook me, it’s fantastic. “A Sea of Unspoken Things” is a clever small town mystery that I needed to see through to the end. The twists were fantastic!

Really enjoyed this book. The mystery, paranormal, and romantic aspects all wove together really well. The atmosphere created with the description of the forest and the small town was very easy to picture.

5/5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Adrienne Young is an absolute master at creating rich and atmospheric stories. She’s so good at writing a dimensional cast of characters and delivering information from different timelines in a way that keeps you completely enthralled.

A Sea of Unspoken Things is no exception. After high school, and the unfortunate death of her close friend, James leaves her hometown and never looks back. Twenty years later, she’s forced to return after her twin brother dies in a suspicious hunting accident. We watch James navigate reconnecting with her abandoned friends, and uncovering the life her brother left behind, while also learning about past events and what truly happened to Griffin and Johnny.

I know it’s cheesy and cliche, but if there was ever an author that “I’d read their grocery list” just because they wrote it, it’s Adrienne Young. If you liked Spells for Forgetting and The Unmaking of June Farrow, then I promise A Sea of Unspoken Things will not disappoint.

Thank you SO much NetGalley and Delacorte Press for allowing me to ARC read this masterpiece.

This was a beautiful story with elements of grief, and mystery. I appreciated the character development and the slow burn made for an atmospheric reading experience. I would've liked to read more about the twins relationship beforehand and been able to experience that.

Thanks for the review copy. I would never have guessed the plot twists. I love Young’s adult books. They are very unique.

I enjoyed going into this book blind, not knowing what I would get. I enjoyed the suspense mystery elements, which were a bigger focus than I thought going into it. I like how the author makes you think you know what happened but then you don’t at all. However, I did find the ending to be a bit anticlimactic but that might have just been my reading experience. I also wish the romance was more developed. The two characters supposedly have a long history with each other but I didn’t totally feel it so I wasn’t fully rooting for them/care. I think there was more telling than showing when it came to their relationship.

Love this author and I think this one is my favorite so far! Beautiful, atmospheric writing while still being propulsive and interesting. Loved the setting and how the woods, cliffs and small town almost became a character themselves. The plot was easy to follow and I did not predict the ending to the two mysteries. My only negative feedback would be the descriptions of Johnny got a little repetitive in the first half of the book. I also think the title leads the reader to believe the sea is more involved, but I think the forest setting played a bigger role. This book may be hard to fit into just one genre - it felt like a thriller at some points, but the writing and character development felt more literary. Overall, a fantastic book and will probably be one of my favorites of the year. I hope Young keeps writing these amazing books, I’ve been a fan since the Fable series!

James had always had a deep connection with her twin brother, Johnny. So, when James feels a deep pain in her chest, she already knew something horrible had happened before she received the phone call of her brother's death. James decides to head back to her hometown of Hawthorne, California to help finish the project Johnny was working on and hopefully get answers on why he was in the woods the day he was killed. James has not been back home since she left for school and is now forced to rehash out the past with the town and Micah, her first and only love. As James digs into Johnny's affairs, she starts to unravel Johnny's secrets and possibly a motive into his death.

I love Adrieene Young's books, and they have a way with sucking you in to the mystery. They are always beautifully written, and A Sea of Unspoken Things is her best book so far in my opinion. Although this isn't your typical fast-paced mystery/thriller, I actually preferred the slow pace in this story. It held my interest until the very end and James is the perfect main character. Not only is James dealing with the grief of losing her brother but also learning to forgive herself for events that occurred in the past. The small parts of romance with James and Michah had me rooting for them to reconnect. Overall, this was a fantastic read and fans of Adrieene Young will not be disappointed.

A Sea of Unspoken Things comes out on January 7th, 2025.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing-Ballantine for the opportunity review A Sea of Unspoken Things. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I enjoyed myself reading this. I loved how visual Young wrote her descriptions. I could picture perfectly what the gorge, diner, cabin, etc. looked like. I could feel the strain of secrets both old and new with each new puzzle piece. It was a bit repetitive with lines like “Did I even really know my brother?” I felt like every chapter ended along those lines.

I also loved the second chance romance happening with Micah and James. I was smiling very wide at the ending they got.

I am very thankful I was approved for an ARC review and was constantly surprised by this story.

Perfect for magic-realism lovers! Ghosts, mysteries, a seemingly alive forest, and love-- what more could you want?
I pre-ordered this book back in April of this year, and when I saw it was an available ARC, I had to try to get it!
Adrienne Young is one of my newly-discovered favorite authors. I started last fall with "Spells for Forgetting" and read "The Unmaking of June Farrow" earlier this year. I can confidently say that Adrienne Young's books will keep you guessing until she finally reveals the answer. Her books are ones you'll want to read immediately after finishing because you're looking to connect dots you missed during the first read. Seriously-- I thought I had "A Sea of Unspoken Things" figured out several times, only to be completely blindsided by the answer.
A Sea of Unspoken things transports the reader into a mystical forest in California. We're met with James, the sister half of a set of twins. She's relocated out of her small logging town to the bright lights of San Fran to chase her dream of being an artist. She only returns to her hometown due to the tragic, and mysterious, death of her twin, Johnny. While there, she reunites with her first-love and brother's best friend, Micah, who helps James solve the many mysteries of their hometown. But just when it seems one mystery has been solved, more questions circulate. And when another person is found missing from the same small town, tempers flare, suspicions rise, and nobody can be trusted.
This novel leaves breadcrumbs of James, Johnny, and Micah's past throughout the book, leaving the reader to wonder who, if anyone, is innocent.
I genuinely cannot recommend this book, or her others, enough. Adrienne has a real talent for transporting readers to wherever she needs them to be. I am so excited for others to get their hands on this!
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for sending me an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Overall, I am a little underwhelmed by this. This might be user error because I wasn't aware that this was going to be a mystery but even after realizing what I was in for, it didn't really do a lot for me. The characters were so mysterious the whole time that even by the end I didn't feel as though I knew them any better than I did at the beginning. Not even sure if it was just me though, but everyone seemed like a suspect to me because everyone seemed so shady. There wasn't much of a resolution either because even though we found "the culprit" not all of the answers were even discovered, including one of the biggest ones.

I think that this was trying to do too much, It was a romance, and a family story, and a murder mystery, and lit fic all in one and I think because it was trying to do all of this at once it didn't do any of them as good as it could have been done.

After reading this I was feeling okay about it, but the more I think about it the less I like it and the more forgettable it really is., I do own two other titles by her so I am going to give those a shot as well, but was definitely a little disappointed in this,

⭐️ 4/5 ⭐️
🌶️ 1/5 🌶️

“We were made in the dark.”

I recently discovered Adrienne Young’s books and I’ve been hooked on them the last month or so. I’ve read both The Unmaking of June Farrow as well as Spells for Forgetting, which are really hard books to top for me.

The atmosphere for this was remarkable. Adrienne has an uncanny ability to create and write settings that are fictional but feel so nostalgic. You feel as though you’ve been there before and experience the lives of the characters.

To avoid too many spoilers, the mysteries in this book just kept adding up. As I was reading I had the impression I knew what was happening and what I was reading, but then something else was thrown at the reader.

There were definitely a thing or two that I wish were explored or delved more into, which is the only reason why I can’t give it a full 5/5. But I still throughly enjoyed the read!

A Sea of Unspoken Things
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Adrienne Young is seriously such a good writer and can write in any genre. I love how atmospheric her books are, and this one is no different!

James is called back to her small home town when her twin brother is found dead. As she confronts her brother’s life after living apart for 20 years, she has to come to terms with why she left in the first place.

I loved this story for its vivid setting, unpredictable twists, and an ending that had me feeling so much. So glad I got a copy of this on @netgalley!

4.5⭐️ - WOW! This one was a standout story. Adrienne Young is so talented and does an amazing job of putting the reader IN to the story. It’s absolutely beautiful. She intervened her signature use of magical realism through the story that brought to life the tether and deep connection between twin siblings.

Something important to know going into it is that this is not a fast paced, twisty thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat. What it is, though, is family drama with secrets revealed, and chilling vibes throughout that allude to dark things happening.

My interest was kept until the very end, and the twists to the mysteries fit so well with the characters and events that happened. Several times I was holding my breath, yelling inside my head “I need answers!”

I loved this book and highly recommend!

Thank you to Delacorte Press and NetGalley for my advanced copies in exchange for an honest review!

“He was this forest. Vastly unknowable and enduringly steady. A persistent force at the center of my world. And maybe in that way, he would never really be gone.”

I am truly blown away by this book. I will forever be in my Adrienne Young Era. She has such a way of creating these haunting magical worlds that draw you in. The talent is unreal, and I DEVOURED this read. It follows the story of James who returns to her small town after her twin brother is murdered. As you can imagine I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. The characters are so raw it just made the story jump off the page. I adored the storyline of James and Micah. I will be thinking about this book for a while!


This will be out in early January so get it on the TBRS! Huge thank you to net galley for this ARC!

Adrienne Young returns with another atmospheric small town mystery in A Sea of Unspoken Things, and while it was reminiscent of Spells for Forgetting, it lacked the sense of enchantment that came with Spells or my personal favorite, The Unmaking of June Farrow.

Quick Synopsis:
James returns to the small town that raised her and her twin brother following his mysterious death, only to uncover hidden secrets about his life and their shared past. As she reconnects with an old flame and confronts her own unresolved trauma, she is drawn deeper into the truth behind her brother’s demise. With her unique connection to him still lingering, she must decide what truths should come to light and which should stay in the dark.

In typical Young fashion, The Sea of Unspoken Things puts the setting and atmosphere at center stage with the characters and plot orbiting around it, secondary to its immersive presence. The pacing starts a bit slow as the author acclimates you to the setting and story but once that initial work is complete, the pacing is fairly consistent, pulling you along with a steady dose of intrigue The author did interesting character work with Johnny’s character as we are getting to know him primarily through memories and half-truths, leaving us to piece together the clues we are given and ultimately form our own opinions about who he really was.
While the story held my attention, it felt just fine overall. The characters and romance were adequate, and the plot twists surprised me but ultimately felt—just fine. I did feel that the ending left some loose ends unresolved; although these threads were not central to the plot, they could have been easily tied up.
Overall, A Sea of Unspoken Things is a solid choice for a quick, cozy weekend read for those seeking just a smidge of magic in their mystery, but it didn’t feel particularly new, fresh, or exciting. Adrienne Young is still an auto-buy author for me and I look forward to her next project, whatever that may be!
Thank you to Random House Publishing - Ballantine and NetGalley for the opportunity to review A Sea of Unspoken Things as an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Adrienne can do no wrong. Every single one of her novels are phenomenal. This made my heart race and I was just hooked from the start!