While I won’t give any spoilers for the twists or the ending, I will say that I saw it coming, and while it was a trope I’ve enjoyed in many other pieces of media, I didn’t love its execution here. While some of those scenarios are somewhat explained later, avoiding tying up those loose ends struck me as incomplete and a missed opportunity to make this book a lot more solid than it was. I read an eARC of this, so hopefully these issues were fixed by the time the final edits went to print, but I found some glaring continuity errors (such as a character destroying an item on one page, and then having it in his hands, unharmed, two pages later) and there were some unlikely scenarios that I couldn’t quite suspend my disbelief for. Unfortunately for me, there were a lot of elements of this story that did not work for me, with most of them boiling down to the writing and editing.

If you’re looking for an eerie YA thriller/horror tale this summer, Summer’s Edge has you covered, and I think a lot of readers are going to be very enraptured by the twists and turns within these pages. The book has the same “secret individual seeks revenge for a death with a suspicious story” vibes as the latter, with the bizarre, topsy-turvy feel of the former, all set in a lake house that often feels as though it has a mind of its own. Summer’s Edge was pitched to me as “ The Haunting of Hill House meets I Know What You Did Last Summer“, and let me start off by saying that’s actually an excellent pair of comps for this title.

The problem is that I think the line has begun to blur. The problem is that the living and the dead aren’t meant to mix. And all the clues needed to find the person responsible are right here.Īs old betrayals rise to the surface, Chelsea and her friends have one night to unravel a mystery spanning three summers before a killer among them exacts their revenge. Which has perfect hostess Kennedy on edge as eerie events culminate in a stunning accusation: Emily’s death wasn’t an accident. Loner Ryan stirs up old hurts and forces golden boy Chase to play peacemaker. Only, Chelsea is haunted by ghostly visions.

The house awaits them, meticulously rebuilt. Until the fire burned the lake house to ashes with her inside.Ī year later, it’s in Emily’s honor that Chelsea and her four friends decide to return. PUBLISHER: Simon Schuster Books for Young ReadersĮmily Joiner was once part of an inseparable group-she was a sister, a best friend, a lover, and a rival.

Into the Ashes by Lee Murray