The Wicked Deep

by Shea Ernshaw

First published 2018

Penny Talbot lives on a remote island with her grief-stricken mother, who has never recovered from losing her husband. Every summer, the spirits of three sisters drowned as accused witches in 1800 return to their small Oregon coastal town. Marguerite, Aurora, and Hazel Swan take over the bodies of local teenage girls and lure young men into Sparrow Bay's deadly waters. For two centuries, this curse has claimed victims each season. When Bo Carter arrives as an outsider who knows nothing about the town's dark history, Penny realizes the sisters will target him next. She must find a way to break the supernatural cycle that has terrorized Sparrow for generations. The approaching summer means the Swan sisters will soon return, and Penny faces an impossible choice between protecting Bo and confronting forces that have proven unstoppable for two hundred years. Her isolated life with her broken mother has left her unprepared for this battle, but Bo's arrival forces her to act before the sisters claim another victim.

Genres: fantasy, supernatural, young-adult, paranormal

Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful

Tropes: outsider-in-a-small-town, supernatural-curse

Setting: Sparrow Bay, Oregon

Period: 1800s, 21st century

310 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Content warnings: death

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