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Eden's Everdark by Karen Strong
5.0
adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

A stellar, spine-tingling middle grade horror. 

12 year old Eden takes her first trip to Safina Island, her mother’s hometown, not long after her mother’s death. She is welcomed with open arms and quickly falls in love with her extended family and the beautiful island, but after discovering some eerie sketches from her mom’s childhood, she is left unsettled by the place and what may have happened to her mother there. One day, while exploring the island, she stumbles through a sliver of night in the woods and into a world called Everdark, home of spirits, monsters, and a woman called the Witch of Everdark who wants to make Eden her daughter forever. Strong’s evocative world-building, of both the mystical Everdark and the Black community that has lived on Safina Island for centuries, effectively draws readers in. She also cleverly incorporates frank discussions of slavery and its legacy in the South without losing readers’ attention. This well-paced and suspenseful book is sure to appeal to horror fans, particularly of those who liked Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.