Publication date: September 7th 2021
Publisher: Razorbill
ISBN: 0593403967La Cachette, Louisiana, is the worst place to be if you have something to hide.
This tiny town, where seventeen-year-old Grey spends her summers, is the self-proclaimed Psychic Capital of the World–and the place where Elora Pellerin, Grey’s best friend, disappeared six months earlier.
Grey can’t believe that Elora vanished into thin air any more than she can believe that nobody in a town full of psychics knows what happened. But as she digs into the night that Elora went missing, she begins to realize that everybody in town is hiding something – her grandmother Honey; her childhood crush Hart; and even her late mother, whose secrets continue to call to Grey from beyond the grave.
When a mysterious stranger emerges from the bayou – a stormy-eyed boy with links to Elora and the town’s bloody history – Grey realizes that La Cachette’s past is far more present and dangerous than she’d ever understood. Suddenly, she doesn’t know who she can trust. In a town where secrets lurk just below the surface, and where a murderer is on the loose, nobody can be presumed innocent–and La Cachette’s dark and shallow lies may just rip the town apart.
I read this book back to back with The Dead and the Dark, and when I first went into this one, I thought for sure they’d be incredibly similar. The premises, after all, were pretty alike. Missing kids, small towns, etc. and so forth. But oh my god was I wrong. Though the elements are there, the differences between the two stories is miles and miles.
I spent a lot of time both in Louisiana and talking to people from the state so slipping into this story felt like meeting an old friend. I never considered that there were towns south of New Orleans, however, until the main character, Grey, explains the location of her hometown. I’ve always been fascinated by the wet, swampy lands of Southern Louisiana, so I was in love from the get-go with the rich setting.
I’m caught somewhere between feeling like a whole lot of nothing happen for a good portion of the story, and feeling like it was just the right length. There was a few moments where the story seemed to drag, but whenever I felt that way, the story shifted or something happened that made me want to keep reading.
I was left thinking about the ending for days and day after reading the last page. When I closed the book, I stared into the nothing for a few minutes before quietly swearing, “What the fuck was that?” I can say without reservation that I didn’t see that ending coming for a second. It left me wanting more; I actually checked to see if this was a standalone when I was done. Don’t think that there’s a cliffhanger ending because there’s not. I just needed some more time with the characters and setting. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you’re looking for an atmospheric, creepy read with lots of speculative elements to be apart of your Fall reading, I can’t recommend this one enough. I won my review copy in a contest from the publisher, but this did not influence my opinion of the book. Thank you PenguinTeen/Razorbill for the free copy!