The Dark We Know

Gr 9 Up–A funeral—her abusive father’s funeral, to be exact—is what brings art student Isadora Chang back to her hometown; all she has to do is stick around long enough to get her share of the inheritance she’s owed. But it isn’t easy for her: Slater is a dying mining town still under the thumb of the mine’s founders, the illustrious Vandersteens, and as the collapse of the mines has choked the life out of the town, so too has it suffocated bisexual Isa. The town’s religious undercurrents, her father’s adherence to such, and her mother’s silence never made her feel as if she belonged. When two of her best friends, track star Zach and Isa’s unrequited crush Wren, seemingly took their own lives within weeks of one another, Isa left Slater and her only surviving friend Mason, and never looked back. Then Mason shows up at the service pleading for help—Paige Vandersteen, teen heiress, has gone missing, Mason was the last person who saw her alive, and he’s pretty sure that she, Zach, and Wren were all taken by the same supernatural entity. Slater’s secret, tragic, violent history comes roiling to the forefront. Lyrical, sorrowful, and oozing with anguish, Lee’s debut novel fully embraces the Gothic tradition and fills every page with dread. Sincere characterizations of queer teens forging relationships in the face of sadness and terror buoy the narrative, which is as bleak and desolate as Slater itself. The verbose prose may turn off some readers, but those wading in will be rewarded with a tale of true terror.