book review : Shadow Hills

After discovering her sister Athena was plagued by similar nightmares before her death, Persephone “Phe” Archer decides to attend the boarding school in Shadow Hills, Massachusetts Athena applied to. Once she gets there, Phe finds herself investigating the town’s haunting past and how she might fit into it.

Despite a tentative beginning (I might have groaned a bit when the novel started with a dream), I was hooked by the end of chapter 1 with an electrifying meet-cute in a graveyard between Phe and her “dream” guy Zach. Their palpable chemistry is a main attraction in this fresh, thrilling take on the paranormal romance genre.


Phe is inquisitive and spunky, and though she tells us she’s broken inside, I didn’t really get that vibe from her. If anything, she felt too put together and self-possessed to be a 15 year old mourning her sister’s death. Zach is your typical brooding hottie hiding a paranormal secret, but he’s surprisingly gentlemanly and non-possessive. These two seem destined to be together…too bad Zach’s sister Corinne is dead-set on keeping them away from each other “for their own protection”.

And just why they'd be better off apart despite their undeniable, magnetic attraction is part of the mystery. The more secrets about the townspeople, their strange genetic make-up, and her own seemingly mythological part in the whole affair Phe uncovers, the more the more danger she puts herself in. Though we get enough answers and teases in this installment to get a good sense of what might be going on, I have a feeling we haven’t seen the end of Shadow Hills. And that’s fine by me – because I want more!