Full disclosure: I critique partnered for the author, S.O. Thomas, on another MS and I happen to think her writing is absolutely fantastic, so I may be biased. But I don't write reviews for books I don't think are great, and these were a delightful, dark, spooky surprise. So much so, that I asked my library to buy one, and I bought the other. ;-)
The Slug Queen Chronicles is S.O. Thomas' WriteMentor book. It reads like a darker, more serious Spiderwick Chronicles, if you remember those from a few years back. The main character, 12-year-old Cricket, is both neurodivergent and Black, like the author.
Cricket expects an extra special present from her Dad on her birthday, and she's not disappointed. He gives her her deceased mom's journals, the ones with her observations of the colored dust all around them, but with the admonishment that she's not to take what her mother wrote literally. It's not real. Boogies, tooth fairies buying your loose teeth, and other slightly grim fae creatures are not real.
Except...they are. Very much. First her father and step-mom Janice talk about sending her to a boarding school, and then a talking cat, Fenlick Whiskbur, informs her one of these creatures, a slugwump, has replaced her baby brother Tristan and spirited him away to the fae world. And she'll have to go retrieve him.
And it all hinges around the dust, specifically the black dust, she's seen swirling around lately. Her mother noted many other colors of dust in her journal, even worked with a Boogie to try to control it, but never black. Fenlick tells her it's aerydust and it feeds off fear, enhancing it and twisting the fae creatures who come into contact with it.
Cricket has to travel to Faeryland, or Aeryland, as long as it's under the sway of the black dust, and rescue Tristan.
Fenlick gives her instructions she doesn't really understand, but leaves it up to her to figure out. I won't detail the obstacles Cricket encounters along the way, but there's a complex web of who she can trust and who she can't, because the fae always have their own agendas that care nothing for the plight of the humans caught in their webs.
It's a delightful, dark fae rewrite. Enjoy!
This is actually a series of 10 books so far, conceived by Culliver Grantz, and several are written by him, in the same vein as the Goosebumps books made so wonderfully popular by R.L. Stine, whose MasterClass I've also taken, and I happen to think his writing / organizing his writing is great, so double disclosure, I guess.
This is a super-slim book, but it packs a powerful, creepy whallop. Qenna invites only her "real" friends to her slumber party, not Harley-who-lives-in-a-graveyard, but her father runs into Harley's grandmother at the grocery store and invites her to the party, unbeknownst to Qenna.
Until Haley shows up, of course. The girls were once friends, but now in the 7th grade at Kingsland Prep the social scene has shifted, and Qenna wants nothing to do with Harley.
And Harley's noticed. How could she not? So when she shows up at the party, and overhears Qenna's nasty comments, you've got the perfect set up for the viral social media #Graveyard Challenge. It's simple: go into a graveyard and take a selfie with a tombstone. Harley dares Qenna and the other girls to do it. She even offers to go with Qenna.
She assures Qenna the graveyard is quiet and safe at night; there's no such things as vampires and zombies. But what she doesn't mention is that someone's waiting for them, or waiting for Qenna, in particular, someone very near and dear to Harley, someone Harley will do just about anything to bring back to life.
I loved the ending, which takes what could be a really grim, scary situation and puts a somewhat touching, hopeful spin on it. And I really enjoyed how the author played with the bully / bullied perspectives to deliver the creepy plot twists.
This is perfect for a quick thrill! Enjoy the read.
