July 1, 2023
Something terribly wrong is going on in Sanctum, Alabama. Folks keep mysteriously dying in the small town. Meanwhile, Latavia must follow Auntie's strict rules: stay inside at night, come right home after church, and keep out of the foreboding Red Wood. To Latavia's relief, there are only a few weeks to go before she's off to the University of Georgia. That's plenty of time to visit her crush, Allison, at the ice cream shop and hang out with her geeky younger cousin, Jade. Getting ready for a party one night, Latavia falls prey to a group of townsfolk who take her deep into Red Wood with violent force. In the woods, she's left as a sacrifice for a monster that slithers out of the darkness. The gigantic snake, however, speaks--and Latavia strikes a scandalous deal. If she destroys the magical barriers protecting the town from the creature's wrath, she can go free and get revenge against those who sentenced her to death. A frantic supernatural thriller, Lewis' latest careens from light bloodshed to melodrama with impressive abandon. It also lightly explores racial inequity; Latavia is Black in a seemingly predominantly white town in the American South. Underdeveloped secondary characters smooth the moral quandaries that Latavia faces to their absolute, moral extremes. Overall, this offers an intriguing, at times spellbinding peek into antiheroic actions and an overt meditation on what it means to be monstrous. Fantastically vicious. (Supernatural thriller. 14-18)
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Starred review from July 17, 2023
In this wildly inventive paranormal horror novel by Lewis (Bad Witch Burning), gay Black 18-year-old Latavia Johnson is spending the summer in Sanctum, Ala., with her aunt before her freshman year at the University of Georgia. Latavia has only been there for six weeks; in that time, she’s attended three closed-casket funerals, all for community members who died suddenly under mysterious circumstances. With just a few weeks to go before school begins, Latavia is determined to stay out of trouble by following Auntie’s occasionally grating rules: don’t stay out after dark, and never enter Red Wood, the eerie local forest. But trouble finds her when a group of townspeople restrain her to a stone altar in the woods to be sacrificed to an unknown monster. A giant talking snake appears, and Latavia strikes a deal—she will help him overcome magical barriers that prevent him from wreaking havoc on the town if he agrees to destroy those who tried to sacrifice her. Latavia and the serpent’s darkly humorous banter depicts the duo as an oddball pair; combined with the protagonist’s blossoming romance with a white teenage resident, Lewis provides elevating levity to the outlandish—and captivating—premise. Ages 14–up. Agent: Holly Root, Root Literary.
October 1, 2023
Grades 9-12 Sanctum, Alabama, is a very white town that holds a dark secret. When Black teen Latavia moves there, she is oblivious to the skeletons in Sanctum's closet. At least, until she's kidnapped, chased by the sheriff and his dog, tied up, and left in the woods as a sacrifice to a giant snake. But when she finds unexpected common ground with the monster, the two end up bound together in a quest to get revenge on the people who have wronged them. Latavia, however, finds herself increasingly troubled as she realizes that some people might deserve forgiveness and others (whom she thought she knew) might be hiding much more than she hoped. Though the pacing is somewhat uneven, characters are well-rounded and the narrative is compelling. Lewis (Bad Witch Burning, 2021) utilizes a thrilling and often funny premise, balanced with a web of chaotic relationships among family, friends, a crush, and a monster, to explore discrimination, fear, power, and vengeance in this wonderfully messy, unabashedly queer, supernatural thriller.
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