For fans of: Broken Things by Lauren Oliver, Sawkill Girls by Clare Legrand, Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia, and This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab
Review:
What an unusual read Waters’ debut ended up being for me.
First of all, I have to give kudos to the cover illustrator. Never have I been this lured in by a cover and never has it fit more with the vibe of the story within the book.
Waters sure knows how to write a haunted rural area. The setting of this story and the tone of doom and despair that Waters’ writing invoked were for sure my favourite part of this novel. The descriptions of the music Shady and her friends play, the sorrowful songs all centring around death paired with the concept of a fiddle that can bring back ghosts immediately drew me into this story. Though the secondary characters could have been more fleshed out, I thought that the sense of dread underlying almost every interaction within the novel made for a good time. This isn’t a scary read, by any means. As a certified scaredy-cat, I can confirm that there are no jump scares or anything like that; instead, this novel very much focuses on the vibe of it all to get you shivering.
Shady’s group of friends is surprisingly supportive of her and her desire to unravel the secrets of her family tree and the death of not only her father but also her stepfather. As they uncover hidden plots and strained relationships, the tension and romance revs up and it all tied together nicely at the end, especially Shady’s descriptions of the haggard world she’s living in and her spooky memories involving ghosts and heartbreaking scenes with her father tugged at my tear ducts. While I wasn’t too invested in the whodunit plot of it all, the spooky vibes and overall setting of the story still kept me engaged to the last page.
The bisexual rep in this one was really mellow and I enjoyed it quite a lot! Instead of feeding into the been-there-done-that stereotypes so often associated with bisexuality like that bisexual people are greedy, Waters instead offers up a realistic portrayal of Shady Grove who’s trying her hardest to come to terms with her somewhat unrequited feelings for her best friend while also finding herself inexplicably drawn to Cedar, a fellow musician who seems to just get her. There’s a bit of wavering and the love triangle is more of a tug of war at points where Shady is the only one pulling but it was still nicely done.
A creepily clever debut, Ghost Wood Song works hard against bisexual clichés and instead pulls readers into an atmospheric story reminiscent of classic Southern Gothic literature, filled with ghosts, family secrets and things that should better stay buried.
Ghost Wood Song is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of July 21st 2020.
Will you be picking up Ghost Wood Song? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
If I could have a fiddle made of Daddy’s bones, I’d play it. I’d learn all the secrets he kept.
Shady Grove inherited her father’s ability to call ghosts from the grave with his fiddle, but she also knows the fiddle’s tunes bring nothing but trouble and darkness.
But when her brother is accused of murder, she can’t let the dead keep their secrets.
In order to clear his name, she’s going to have to make those ghosts sing.
