The Wicked Deep

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

200 years ago, in Sparrow Oregon, three girls were accused of being witches and drowned in the harbour. Since then a deadly curse has befallen the city. Each summer the ghosts of these three girls, the swan sisters, return to Sparrow inhabiting the bodies of three innocent local girls. No male can resist the song of the sea and before the summer is over Sparrow's death bell will have tolled three times...

First of all, this book blew me away. It was a complete cover buy – I have to admit that much (after all I did get myself the special edition ;D) – but the story seemed interesting and I had heard only good things about this book. Naturally I went in with some high expectations, especially since my last few YA reads were all pretty good.
I am far from being disappointed.

Shea Ernshaw creates a wonderful atmosphere with her writing. I felt transported to the shores of my many north sea vacations and I could almost taste the salty waters of coming storms. She picked the perfect setting for an earie and darker plot. I am not a huge fan of the first person narrative, but this book, as it did with so many other tropes, blew me away with the perfect use of it and prosa that seemed more than poetic to me. I have always been a huge fan of the sea and I spend many days wandering on lonely sand beaches or on boats rocked by the tide, so it was important that she captured that feeling without overdoing it, otherwise it might have put me off completely. The author did succeed.

The book began, at least for me, with a quite intriguing story, but the usual YA characters. I thought I had it all figured out, but since the plot continued to be interesting and I was so captivated by the writing I continued to read a pretty good book. But as soon as the plot really took off... It turned into a truly awesome book. There was so much that I did NOT expect and that completely blew me away! (if you read this book you will know that there is one small sentence that changes everything and that left me SCREAMING at the page) It turned a pretty safe YA read into something entirely new and I was left with a lot of guesses but no real clue on how all of this would end. Even worse, I was not sure how I wanted all of it to end! No outcome I could imagine seemed satisfying enough, there was no good ending nor bad ending that could come out of this plot. There was only grey and a huge fear for the characters I had come to love throughout the story. I was hooked, until the last page.

Yes, this book has all the well used YA tropes like beautiful supernatural characters, a main character like a wallflower with that one thing that makes her special and of course the brooding male that swipes her into this one gaze - one true love - thing we all do not like. But it's YA, I did not expect anything else. Yet though The Wicked Deep starts off as a YA novel, just like you would except it, with a nice catch and a dark and twisted fairytale, it ended up being so much more. It has all a solid four stars needs, but that little extra bit, those twist and turns that are something you do not expect at all and that leave you at the edge of your seat... Combined with the great atmosphere of the writing that is what turns the book into one of my favourites this year, if not off all time.

So I am left here, waiting for news on another book by Shea Ernshaw, preferbly another stand alone. Already pumped for whats she might come up with next. This new chapter of YA literature with so many authors, changing the game... I am all in!

This review was also shared to my blog, amazon, and partially to Instagram.

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