The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw - OPTIONAL

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw, 310 pages.  Simon Pulse, 2018.  $18. 

Content: Language: R (20 swears; 14 “f”); Mature Content: PG-13; Violence: PG-13.  

BUYING ADVISORY: HS – OPTIONAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

Penny lives with her mother on an island that's a part of the town of Sparrow.  The curse of Sparrow is that every summer for the past 200 years, three boys die in the water.  The curse started when three sisters were drowned as witches and the belief is that the three sisters return every year to claim their revenge.  Penny hates the curse, especially because she has a secret-she can see the sisters when they overtake bodies of local girls for the summer.  This summer though she especially hates it because she if falling for a new boy in town named Carter, who has come to investigate the mysterious suicide of his brother from the year before, but Penny is afraid he will fall victim to the sisters.   

The cover of this book is captivating, and the summary was intriguing, but as I started reading, I felt like the story had frustrating plot points that weren’t logical, but there were interesting twists.  The characters kept tempting fate and Penny was hard to like.  The content includes off page sex, a heavy make out session and dead bodies. 

C. Peterson