The Night Weaver by Monique Snyman review (plus teasers for The Bone Carver!)

Synopsis:

SHADOW GROVE IS A PERFECTLY PLEASANT TOWN ...

Shadow Grove isn't a typical town. Bad things happen here. Children disappear, one after the other, and nobody is doing anything about it. Parents don't grieve, missing posters don't line the streets, and the sheriff seems unconcerned.

Seventeen-year-old Rachel Cleary lives on the outskirts of Shadow Grove, next to the creepy forest everyone pretends doesn't exist. Usually, the forest is filled with an eerie calm, an unmistakable graveyard solemnity. But the trees have started whispering, forgotten creatures are stirring, and the nights feel darker than ever.

Something is stalking the residents of Shadow Grove, changing them into brain-dead caricatures of themselves. It's up to Rachel to stop the devouring of her hometown before all is destroyed and everyone she loves is forever lost.

Review:

So, I got the second book, The Bone Carver, as an arc, but got this one as my own free will! Let’s jump in!

The Night Weaver by Monique Snyman is a YA faerie horror novel surrounding Rachel, a girl with a mission to solve the mystery of missing kids when the adults of the town do nothing to find them. An intriguing premise to be sure, and the book delivers! ...Kind of.

To be completely honest, I winced through the first 40% of the book. I was almost dreading having to read the ARC of the sequel. It starts almost too quickly, not giving itself enough time to properly establish the world or characters. Rachel is an interesting enough character, but we don’t get her motivations. Yes, finding missing children is an easy goal for anyone to want to achieve, but the question is why? Out of the goodness of her heart would be a believable reason, but it’s a boring reason for a horror character. There are weird time jumps between chapters that are jarring enough that you need to reread the first lines of a new chapter once or twice, and some conclusions are drawn too quickly and too weirdly to make sense.

Despite all this, I still want to recommend this book. If you can push through the first 40% (which actually isn’t that hard, thanks to the fact that there is still plenty of atmospheric descriptions and creepy scenes), then the rest of the book is actually amazing. Rachel is an amazing, likable, and funny character when she actually gets properly defined, the weird time jumps are eliminated, and so much happens so quickly. The way the mystery draws to a close is so creepy and cool, the climax is absolutely thrilling, and the fae lore that Snyman crafts has a solid base in tradition, but she took her own path with it to create a lore and ending that promises one hell of a wild ride in The Bone Carver.

You can find The Night Weaver on Amazon in Kindle and paperback format (it's free with Kindle unlimited!)

The Bone Carver teasers!

For a small New England town, Shadow Grove has an uncanny ability to attract the worst kind of trouble. Not that the residents are too concerned about the various horrors living among them.

As the leaves change color and the weather grows colder, a foul presence is making itself known by leaving peculiar gifts for the students of Ridge Crest High. At first, the presents seem harmless—and a rash of accidents seem coincidental—but when seniors Rachel Cleary and her Scottish cousin, Dougal Mackay, find a boneless body in the boiler room, things take an ominous turn.

Something vicious is on the loose in Shadow Grove, but with Orion Nebulius gone, Rachel has little hope of anyone getting out alive.

The sequel to The Night Weaver comes out on October 20th! You can preorder The Bone Carver in all of the same formats as the first book here!

But for now, here are some teasers to whet your appetite!