This terrifying twisted tale, set at a fancy boarding school in Virginia, USA, will keep you reading until the bitter end. Why? Because, well, you just have to know what’s really going on. Are these macabre monsters real? And if so, how will they be contained?
CG Drews has a talent for creating gruesome Young Adult stories. After reading Hazelthorn (2025) I was left wanting, so dug into this one (2024). The writing isn’t quite as lyrical but it’s still a strange, melancholy love song wrapped up in vines, thorns, flowers, blood, ink, and assorted greenery that invades the bodies of her adolescent victim. Drews must be a gardener or the child of one.
Andrew is a fragile, sensitive boy who writes dark fairy tales. Thomas—the wild, fierce boy Andrew loves—draws vile monsters, the creatures from Andrew’s stories. Dove, a studious young woman with her whole life mapped out, is Andrew’s twin sister. These three have been inseparable since Dove and Andrew arrived from Australia when they were twelve to study at Wickwood Academy. But this year, their graduating year, things are different.
Dove is keeping her distance. She’s preparing for a world beyond Wickwood, while Andrew seems to be fading into the forest. Feeling stuffed full of moss, he can’t eat. Thomas’s abusive parents were brutally murdered and everyone whispers that he killed them. When the boys venture into the off-bounds wild wood, they discover monsters everywhere—monsters created in Andrew’s imagination and brought to life by Thomas’ drawings. Feeling responsible, they take it upon themselves to keep the secret, destroy Thomas’s sketches, and kill the monsters. They must keep them from getting into the school.
Even as I turn the last page I’m left wondering. What really happened? The thing is: we see the story through Andrew’s eyes and he’s an unreliable narrator struggling with first love and his identity. Though he’s in love with Thomas, Andrew thinks he might be asexual. Yet he yearns for his first kiss. From Thomas. Only Thomas. And as the story progresses, Andrew hears other things from other people—things he doesn’t want to hear from people who don’t believe in the monsters, compassionate adults who want to send him home to recover.
It’s complex, twisted, and tragic. Note that the book comes with content warnings: “blood/gore, body horror, panic attacks, grief, eating disorder, bullying, and self-harm.”
The book itself—I read the hardcover— is an artistic creation with an entire page of editors and creative designers behind it, and obviously buckets of money. I love this trend to create pretty keepsake books. Full page sketches of Thomas’ monsters inspire chills. Yet the fairytale that weaves through the book—pale text embedded on a dark grey page—is printed in a font so fine and fancy, these old eyes can’t read it. Perhaps I missed something there. Artsy, but ineffective. This is a good reminder to always choose a legible font. Note: It’s easier to read in a digital image than on paper.
Psychological horror. A twisted love story. A feast of friendship and fidelity.
“His breathing evened out, but he made no move to get up. Andrew didn’t care, not while they still touched. He craved Thomas’s affection, with an intensity that left him dizzy. If he never had more, he had this.
It was almost worth being ripped apart by monsters” (109).
As I read Hazelthorn I searched for the right words to describe it: unique, original, addictive, disturbing, psychologically horrific … tragic. It’s has “a terrible beauty” as Keats or Yeats might have said. It’s the most superb gothic romantasy I’ve ever read—something Byron and Shelley might have devoured. Really, words are inadequate. You’ll have to read it yourself to understand and feel its effects. Know it will haunt you.
Every line is strangely lyrical, painted with intensity and shadowed with darkness, and yet, the story ends wrapped in ribbons of sunlight. If you open to any page, you’ll find something quoteworthy.
“He is not a bird meant for flight; he is broken wings and forgotten petals left to dry between pages of an old book and he doesn’t know how to believe he could be anything else” (259).
Evander. The boy on the cover smothered by thorns. Locked up and drugged for years in a musty room in a billionaire’s mansion—confused and imprisoned until one day someone unlocks his door and sets him free.
Laurie. The billionaire’s grandson. Beautiful, sarcastic, witty, hurting, desperate, desolate. The object of Evander’s affection, though Evander hates him, justifiably. Laurie attacked Evander when they were ten, beat him and cut him and tried to bury him alive in the garden.
Now they’re seventeen living in a mansion choked by gardens and greenery capable to murder. Grasping at an insane obsession.
And the billionaire’s been murdered. Laurie’s grandfather. Evander’s jailer.
The cover says it all. Evander, embraced by the garden, his flesh ravaged by thorns, his blood oozing. Since the garden had a taste of his blood, it wants him back. The theme of this story is guilt eclipsed by greed. You won’t believe it.
But the message is love.
This is Young Adult Romantasy at its finest … and darkest.
I read A Discovery of Witches years ago but it wasn’t the right time for me. Reading can be like that. Something you read and love today might not work for you five years from now. In my case, it was the opposite. I consumed this lengthy, detailed novel—almost six hundred pages—in a matter of days and emerged amazed by Dr. Deborah Harkness. But how can you not be impressed by this teacher, scholar, creative writer, and cancer survivor?
Harkness describes herself as “a student and scholar of history, with degrees from Mount Holyoke College, Northwestern University, and the University of California at Davis. For my doctoral degree, I researched the history of magic and science in Europe, especially during the period from 1500 to 1700. The libraries I’ve worked in include Oxford’s Bodleian Library, the All Souls College Library at Oxford, the British Library, London’s Guildhall Library, the Henry E. Huntington Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Newberry Library.” Oh, to walk in those footsteps.
Indeed, when we meet Diana Bishop in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, it’s clear that Dr. Harkness has walked there herself.
I watched the series on AMC+ last month and quite enjoyed it, but reading the novel gave me a different sense of the characters, especially of Matthew and Diana. As much as I love the handsome Matthew Goode, the French vampire Matthew Clairmont appeared in my imagination more like my own protagonist, Estrada.
“In his black trousers and soft gray sweater, with a shock of black hair swept back from his forehead and cropped close to the nape of his neck, he looked like a panther … (19).
This dark man, this ancient vampire, is well over six feet tall, with considerable height and bulk, with intense gray-rimmed black eyes. He wears a long coat (but of course) and performs yoga like a gymnast. What’s not to love? This, apparently was the author’s inspiration for his character—a portrait miniature by Nicholas Hilliard (1547 – 1619). I repeat myself: What’s not to love?
What’s most astounding about this book in the author’s world building. In the beginning there were four races: humans, witches, vampires, and daemons. The first, humans, relegated the other three to myth and, over time, their numbers dwindled. Their political world is determined by The Congregation, a council of nine (three of each race) whose main task is to enforce a covenant that prohibits inter-species relationships/mating. Matthew and Diana’s forbidden love puts them on the Congregation’s hit list. Not only that, The Dreaded Congregation want Diana for her power. She’s the only witch in centuries to call up a much-coveted manuscript, Ashmole 782, from Oxford’s Bodleian Library.
Watch a video here to learn about the library. Oxford, and the Bodleian, are definitely on my bucket list, though I’ll need a good reason to be admitted.
Second to world building is the author’s fascinating knowledge of history, of alchemy, of science, and her ability to explain concepts in a way that readers can absorb and understand.
A Discovery of Witches is Book One of the All Soul’s Trilogy. There are now five books in this series. This is a romance with the breadth and depth of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series and the couple as noteworthy. I can’t wait to slip into Book Two and time-travel back to Elizabethan England with Matthew and Diana.
In 2023, Deborah Harkness survived ovarian cancer with the support of Karen, her partner of twenty-six years, whom she married four days before her surgery. We send them blessings. Having escaped ovarian cancer myself in 2014, I understand the terror of hearing those words.
I’ve adored Holly Black’s books since her Valiant Series in the early 2000s. This book is similar in language and story—the collision of humans and otherworldy beings in a lavish natural world. There are several cruel princes in this book: Balekin, Dain, and the youngest and most handsome, Cardan. I imagine the title refers to Cardan who despises and terrorizes our protagonist—good fodder for a love match, don’t ya think? That’s where the romantasy comes in. What a kiss.
“But kissing Locke never felt the way that kissing Cardan does, like taking a dare to run over knives, like an adrenaline strike of lightning, like the moment when you’ve swum too far out in the sea and there is no going back, only cold black water closing over your head” (chapter 26).
If you read enough Black you’ll learn how to write, how to sculpt a phrase, twist a plot, put a character in peril and take her to the edge of death before a miracle occurs. Beautifully layered. Lavish. Captivating. And as comfy as a feather bed. I’m ready for #2, The Wicked King.
Oh, and the cover is stunning, as is the map of The Shifting Isles of Elfhame.
I’d like to spend a night in Holly Black’s head. What dreams are these?
