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The Wicked Deep  by Shea Ernshaw
Published March 6th 2018 by Simon Pulse
Classified as Fantasy, Paranormal, & Young Adult
Obtained as Ebook

   

Welcome to the cursed town of Sparrow…
Where, two centuries ago, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town.

Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under.

Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters’ return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into.</summary

Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain-soaked streets. The townspeople turn against one another. Penny and Bo suspect each other of hiding secrets. And death comes swiftly to those who cannot resist the call of the sisters.

But only Penny sees what others cannot. And she will be forced to choose: save Bo, or save herself.

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Content & Trigger Warnings

Murder, Drowning, Death of a Parent, Death of a Sibling, Depression, Grief, & Suicide.

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Let’s Make Some Waffles

The Story

This eerie book was a strange mix between a summer beach flick and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Because nothing quite says Summer Romance™ like revenge, a creepy witch hunt, and a body count, am I right?

“It’s our town’s penance,” I say. “We drowned three girls in the ocean two centuries ago, and we’ve suffered for it every summer since. We can’t change it.”

Witch hunts and revenge – those are the things that paint the little town of Sparrow, Oregon red in the history books. Those are the things that you would find listed on its Wikipedia page. While most cities along the coastline try to wrangle in tourists with sandy promises of salty waves and greasy boardwalk fries, Sparrow promises neither. What it does promise is this: death. Death, without a doubt, will plague the soggy town of Sparrow, as it has every summer for the last two hundred years.

This is such a creepy premise that gives me all the Halloween vibes. But something that really bothered me was this: everybody was so apatheticabout the yearly murders! The townspeople, the tourists, even the police, accept it all without much of a fight. That was too unrealistic for me – people wouldn’t watch their sons wash ashore, drowned and dead, and not want to find their killer. At least, they shouldn’t.

We wait for death. We hold our breath. We know it’s coming, and still we flinch when it claws at our throats and pulls us under.

And another thing, why does anybody even stay in Sparrow in the first place? If I was them, I WOULD GET THE HECK OUT OF THERE, but oh well  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Whether I think they should be or not, the inhabitants of Sparrow are resigned to their fate; they believe that the drownings are an unchangeable part of their life. Winter comes after autumn, the sun will set at night, and boys will die at the hands of the Swan Sisters.  To deal with it all, the townspeople do either one of two things; they endure or they leave.  

The Characters

Penny Talbot is of the “endure” variety. While her best friend, Rose, dreams of college at a faraway art school, Penny has not cultivated any such dreams. She has accepted the cold-hard reality that she will never leave behind her damp, moldering hometown. That she will never wave goodbye to the awfulness that is not knowing which of her guy friend acquaintances (Penny doesn’t really have friends) will drown this year.

No thinking, just doing. When you think about things too long, you just talk yourself out of them.

And that kind of sums up Penny in a nutshell – she is miserable, but lets her fear stop her from changing. To somebody who suffers from borderline anxiety attacks, this is relatable as heck. However, it also makes Penny sound bitter, resigned, and brooding.  I felt disconnected from her for the majority of the book, though perhaps that was the author’s intention all along.

Enter stage left: the love interest. Bo is tall, dark, mysterious, and has a handful of secrets clenched inside his fist that he isn’t willing to share. In short, he’s the stereotypical YA love interest. The first time he genuinely interacts with Penny is when he saves her from the unwanted harassments of some drunken dude. When I read that, I rolled my eyes. I wanted to shake my tablet and say, “It’s 2018, people. I think we’re over the whole damsel-in-distress thing!” But as the story progresses, it became clear to me that Bo is not who I thought he was. He, just like the town of Sparrow, suffers from the all-consuming nature of revenge. 

Bo and Penny. Penny and Bo. Sure, there are other characters in the story, such as the best friend Rose that I mentioned earlier, but they felt more like afterthoughts than anything. Like that guy credited as, “Board Member #3” in Ocean’s Eleven – they were there to fill a role. They needed to be there to propel the plot forward and nothing more.

The Setting

This book was extremely atmospheric.  I could practically see Sparrow’s chronic fog creeping its way into the corners of my bedroom, hear the deadly call of the three witchy sisters, feel the hopelessness that weighs around the necks of the townspeople like an anchor. Yes, if I had to pick one thing that Shea Ernshaw really excelled at in her debut,  I would say that she knows how to create an unforgettable setting. She knows how to set a tone, in this case an eerie one, and stick to it.

The hallway smells like floor wax and rotting wood. The windows are single-pane and drafty, the wind rattling the glass in the frames every afternoon. The light fixtures blink and buzz. None of the lockers close because the foundation has shifted several degrees off center. If I had known another town, another high school, I might find this place depressing. But instead, the rain that leaks through the roof and drips onto desks and hallway floors during winter storms just feels familiar. Like home.

Other Notes

• The pacing of the story was off at times, especially in the beginning. It was a slow start and though it did get better from there, time moved awkwardly. Sometimes the author would skip over weeks at a time with not so much as of a hint at action, while the end of the novel was so jam-packed  that it was a bit overwhelming in comparison. In short, the first half of the story was extremely slow, the second half was too fast, and all of it made the plot and characters fall flat. 
• The romance felt a bit forced in places, and that’s most likely a result of the pacing issue that I mentioned above. It’s also strange that Penny and Bo immediately just have this… connection. Penny says at one point, “I know almost nothing about him, but it feels as if he’s always been here.” Cheesy lines like this make my stomach squirm like a jellyfish. How can you know nothing about him and still feel like that?
• Also, these gifs, because how could we talk about witches and not mention Monty Python at least once? 

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Mix it all up and you get… Meh.

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Have you read The Wicked Deep?

What did you think about it?

Do you like atmospheric novels?