17-year-old Deryn Schroeder has just been murdered and not being able to remember what happened is haunting her.
After being rescued from a spirit eater by the mysterious Aeneas, Deryn is brought to Ravenshaw Sanctuary, a haven for lost spirits. . . or so they claim.
Ravenshaw has many rules, all enforced by a descendant of the Ravenshaw family, a man who canât stand Deryn.The punishment for breaking the rules â banishment to the in-between, a world of nightmares and lost souls. Ravenshawâs core belief: The living dwell with the living. The dead dwell with the dead.
Deryn may have partial amnesia from when she was alive but sheâs confident she wasnât a rule follower. With help from a former classmate, who happens to be a medium, they try to piece together what happened the night she died.
But Ravenshaw is more a twisted creepy ghost town than a haven. Deryn discovers spirits are actually disappearing under the guise of being helped and she could be next . . . especially if sheâs caught breaking the rules. Desperate for answers Deryn makes a deal with Aeneas who may just be death itself.
17-year-old Deryn Schroeder has just been murdered and not being able to remember what happened is haunting her.
After being rescued from a spirit eater by the mysterious Aeneas, Deryn is brought to Ravenshaw Sanctuary, a haven for lost spirits. . . or so they claim.
Ravenshaw has many rules, all enforced by a descendant of the Ravenshaw family, a man who canât stand Deryn.The punishment for breaking the rules â banishment to the in-between, a world of nightmares and lost souls. Ravenshawâs core belief: The living dwell with the living. The dead dwell with the dead.
Deryn may have partial amnesia from when she was alive but sheâs confident she wasnât a rule follower. With help from a former classmate, who happens to be a medium, they try to piece together what happened the night she died.
But Ravenshaw is more a twisted creepy ghost town than a haven. Deryn discovers spirits are actually disappearing under the guise of being helped and she could be next . . . especially if sheâs caught breaking the rules. Desperate for answers Deryn makes a deal with Aeneas who may just be death itself.
As I looked down at my dead body, one thought screamed to the surface: I have to fix this.
My body lay at my feet, eyes open and staring up into the dark. Breathless, I looked up at the cloudy dark sky as large snowflakes blanketed me. The branches of the surrounding trees creaked under the growing weight, and the chill in the air had teeth. My body was motionless.
âNo, no, no, no.â I shook my head. âNot real, this is not real.â
My head ached as the shadows weighed everything down in dark sheets, leaving only the contrast of ivory snow against midnight trees. Where was I? The wind whistled as it rushed up behind me, screaming as it passed.
My heart drummed against my rib cage as raw panic squeezed my throat closed. I pressed a fist into my chest to hold back the floodgates threatening to spill out and completely drown me.
This canât be me. An out-of-body experience? Isnât that what delusional people talk about all the time? I looked down at my partially opened eyes. The snow landing on me didnât make me blink.
I stepped away. What was I doing out here? I shivered in my light jacket and remembered I was meeting someone. I was not out for a nighttime snow hike. I squeezed into myself as the cold surrounded me. Why couldnât I remember what I was doing?
Nothing looked familiar. Looking up, I could partially make out an overhanging ledge, and a vague feeling of falling rose up from my memory. I remembered running, the wind whistling in my ears and drowning my lungs in ice. Why had I been running? Who was I running from?
I looked down at my body as it lay sprawled on the ground, long blond hair in my face and eyes empty, as snow made quick work of covering me. I could be here until the spring thaw. I went to straighten my clothesâto cover the red bra exposed from a low-cut shirtâand to straighten my legs. As I reached out to touch my cheek, a hard invisible push pressed against my fingers, stopping me. I tried again, and again an invisible force pushed back. I couldnât touch my own face.
A scream flooded the woods and curled around my soul. I went still and watched the dark around me. Movement started in the distance, and though I couldnât see it, I could hear it. I started to back up. The trees made popping noises as the ground began to shake, and snow fell in clumps around me. Whatever it was, it was huge. I gave one last look at my body in the snow and started to run. The frigid air burned my skin and doused me in frost. Sometimes tree limbs gave as I passed through them, and sometimes they struck back, scratching at my face and bare legs.
The pressure of the angerâthe rageâpressed in all around me. I looked back and caught a glimpse of a shadow coming in on me fast, eyes glowing and tentacles of darkness filling the sky with streamers of dark ribbon.
What the hell is that? I pushed harder. My lungs burned fire, and my legs ached as the snow swallowed each footfall. The snapping of tree branches grew louder.
Breaking the barrier between the trees and vines, I stumbled onto the road and right into the path of headlights.
âStop!â I screamed, but the car didnât stop. It passed straight through me.
I looked down at myself. The snow could land on me and melt, but the car had gone right through me.
I turned to the woods and clenched my fists. I needed to see this thing closing in on me. I could hear what I thought was the wind passing through trees, but then I realized it was something big intentionally sliding around in the woods just out of sight. The snapping of twigs echoed all around, giving way to the weight of the creature, but it still stayed just beyond my field of vision.
I looked around as snow covered the tire tracks and everything else. The blaring lights had me seeing spots. There was nothing to grab to defend myself.
âWhat do you want?â I screamed, and my anger rose fast, colliding with my fear. I was shaking from both. âI donât play games.â
A wicked female laugh erupted, and the sharp sound cut straight through me. She was moving again, just out of sight, branches snapping as she moved from high above me to down below, curling across the dark ground. I still couldnât see her clearly.
âYou love games,â she replied, staying just out of sight. Her voice mimicked mine. âWe love games. We played all the time.â
âIâm not messing around!â I yelled. âWhat are you?â
âWhat are you?â she echoed.
Holding my breath and squinting my eyes, I tried to make out the shapes in the dark. The harsh glow of the headlights had worn off, and my eyes were slowly settling on small defined details.
âWhat are you?â I tried again. I needed to keep her talking so she couldnât sneak up on me. âWhatâs happening?â
âIâm you,â she whispered. âIâm all you.â
âDid you see what happened?â I called out. I needed to keep her talking long enough for me to figure out how to get out of here. âI canât remember what I was doing.â
âYouâre cheating.â She laughed. âI canât just tell you what youâve done, whatâs been done to us.â
âWhy?â I frowned. âWhy is it like this? Iâm a ghost?â
âSpirit dweller, sweet to eat and oh so weak,â she sneered. âDo you want to remember?â
âYes!â I looked at the general area I was pretty sure she was lurking in.
Her figure pulled in the shadows, and she took a solid shape. She emerged onto the road, and the snow continued to fall between us. She stood no taller than me, and her anger and rage curled and twisted in the air, seething around her like smoke. She walked toward me. She was familiar but so dark in appearance there were no features to discern. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I steadied myself, ready to strike out.
âWhat are you?â I barely got out, and she lunged for me. I screamed as dark tentacles pulled my legs out from under me, and her wild hair came down to pin my arms and press my body flat.
âWe are closer than sisters,â she hissed. I couldnât move, and she hovered just inches above my face. Her eyes were glowing red orbs full of anger.
The figure fell on me, and the dark poured down my throat and grabbed my heart. It iced my bones. I choked and gasped at the burnt taste filling my mouth. I fought for air but couldnât get a breath. She covered me in a blanket of cold rage, and it seeped into my skin and soaked me through.
Revenge. It was hot fire igniting my insides, and rational thought went up in flames.
Flashes of memory materialized. I was with someone. I was kissing them, and they had their hands up my shirt, leaving trails of heat on my skin. I was yelling at someone. The bright beams of headlights blinded me. I wasâ
She was torn from me, dark strings snapping and trying to cling to my ribs, and I breathed fresh air as she took all her hostility and rage with her. I struggled to get up and look back.
A bird flew over us and disappeared. My head flooded with pain; my vision blacked out, and for a moment I thought I was going to be sick. I fell back and rolled to my side. The snow was hard and so cold.
Two figures tangled in long shadows and light. The girl that had just tried to take over me was changing shape. Her shadow form was a cloud that expanded and stretched. The guy was tall and thin, and they circled each other slowly. He moved faster than her, but she was enormous now. They werenât people but dreams, their bodies no longer holding a form. My vision started to blur . . . I wanted to sleep and wake up in the hospital with my mom and doctors around me. I wanted this to be a bad dream.
A black raven landed nearby, and its fluttering brought me back briefly as he quickly moved toward me. He tilted his head and eyed me from the side. I started to fade in and out, dark circling me. The girl screamed, causing me and the bird to jump.
The screaming was cut off, and only the crunching of snow was heard as someone approached. A soft voice said to the dark, âThis will do.â
I had the vaguest feeling of being lifted and a finger sliding down my arm. A whisper warmed my ear but didnât make sense. My vision tunneled, and there was no light at the end of itâonly the dark.
Deryn Schroeder is a teenager who, at moment is driving somewhere and the next, dead. She wakes up at a home for ghosts, with her head a clean slate that has been completely erased of any memories, and her heart warning her of some wrongness. She has to endure evil relatives, jealous ex-best friends, wrathful wraiths and many other unique creatures on her mission to solve the single greatest mystery of her afterlife. What happened to her?
Maybe the only monsters in the dark are the men who hunt in it, the same men telling you to be afraid of monsters in the dark.
Firstly, I found the basic concept of this book incredibly creative and exciting. Who doesn't want to read a murder mystery from the dead person's perspective? The way the world was built was thorough and intricate. Every last detail had been thought out to the extent that while reading this book, no one could convince me that this isn't what would happen to people in their afterlives.
Secondly, I am a true sucker for female main characters, but only when they've been written well. This book outdid my expectations. Deryn behaves perfectly as a 17-year-old would, and her feelings regarding being dead are beautifully expressed. It was a real pleasure to witness her rage and anger without it being belittled into hysteria simply because she is female. Her family background and her school behaviour were interesting elements that gave depth to her character.
Thirdly, a good book needs not only an interesting plot but a wonderful writing style to tie it all together. This book certainly delivered. It is the perfect amount of dramatic and casual, and Deryn's internal monologue is simply excellent.
Finally, the rest of the characters introduced in this book are unique and therefore, a delight. They are diverse in age, race, personality and many other ways. Even in this small book, we get glimpses into each of their lives, and we are thus able to see them as real people with their own lives, which is quite a feat.
The only thing I would want to "improve" in this book is to simply have more of it. I feel like a longer novel would've been able to immerse the reader more.
I would recommend this to people who love murder mysteries, and people who love paranormal books that wouldn't necessarily classify as horror ones. This is also in some ways a coming-of-age book, so if that's your cup of tea, this may be for you.