Review: She Waits for You Beyond the Dark (Death Games #2) by Kristen Simmons

Title: She Waits for You Beyond the Dark

Series: Death Games #2

Previous book in this series: Find Him Where You Left Him Dead

Author: Kristen Simmons

Genre: YA, horror, Japanese mythology

Publication date: March 11th 2025

Published by: Tor Teen

Source: eARC for review from publishers via Netgalley

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Synopsis: "Death is not an ending, it’s simply the next chapter. Do not be afraid to turn the page..."

It’s been one month since Ian’s reunited friends escaped the hellish game of Meido and saved him. The survivors may have sealed the gate to the world of the dead shut and destroyed Empress Izanami, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still reeling over the challenges they endured. Trying to relax back in the world of the living, they take solace in the fact that they rescued Ian from the nightmare that tried to steal him away. But there’s just one problem—Ian didn’t come home alone.

The empress—now possessing Ian's heart—hitched a ride into their world and the only way to free Ian from her grasp is to find three artifacts for her, sacred objects which have been hidden across many realms. Unwilling to leave Ian behind a second time, his friends dive into a new deadly game, with terrifying challenges that not only test their mettle, but demand sacrifices—including their very lives.

If they don’t retrieve the empress’s artifacts, Ian will be lost forever, but if they do, it could be the end of their world as they know it.

My rating: ★★★★☆

I have been looking forward to reading this book since I finished the previous book (that cliffhanger!), but my mood was not cooperating. Hence why we are here now, almost a year after I got this book 😅 But I enjoyed it... once I got to it. Lol.

Review: Find Him Where You Left Him Dead (Death Games #1) by Kristen Simmons

Title: Find Him Where You Left Him Dead

Series: Death Games #1

Author: Kristen Simmons

Genre: YA, horror, Japanese mythology

Publication date: September 2023

Published by: Tor Teen

Source: Borrowed from library

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Synopsis: Four years ago, five kids started a game. Only four survived.

Now, at the end of their senior year of high school, the survivors—Dax, Maddy, Emerson, and Owen—have reunited for one strange and terrible reason: they’ve been summoned by the ghost of Ian, the friend they left for dead.

Together they return to the tunnel where their friendship ended with one goal: find Ian and bring him home. So they restart the deadly game they never finished—an innocent card-matching challenge called Meido. A game without instructions.

As soon as they begin, they're dragged out of their reality and into an eerie hellscape of Japanese underworlds, more horrifying than even the darkest folktales that Owen's grandmother told him. There, they meet Shinigami, an old wise woman who explains the rules:

They have one night to complete seven challenges or all of them, Ian included, will be stuck in this world forever.

Once inseparable, the survivors now can’t stand each other, but the challenges demand they work together, think quickly, and make sacrifices—blood, clothes, secrets, memories, and worse.

And once again, not everyone will make it out of Meido alive.

My rating: ★★★★☆

I enjoyed this book more than I was anticipating! Listen, horror books can be hit or miss, but this one was definitely a hit!

Review: Flying by Carrie Jones

Title: Flying

Series: Flying #1

Author: Carrie Jones

Genre: YA, sci-fi, urban fantasy

Publication date: July 2016

Published by: Tor Teen

Source: Purchased paperback

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Synopsis: People have always treated seventeen-year-old Mana as someone in need of protection. She's used to being coddled, being an only child, but it's hard to imagine anything could ever happen in her small-town, normal life. As her mother's babying gets more stifling than ever, she's looking forward to cheering at the big game and getting out of the house for a while.

But that night, Mana's life goes haywire.

First, the hot guy she's been crushing on at school randomly flips out and starts spitting acid during the game. Then they get into a knockdown, drag-out fight in the locker room, during which Mana finds herself leaping around like a kangaroo on steroids. As a flyer on the cheerleading squad, she's always been a good jumper, but this is a bit much. By the time she gets home and finds her house trashed and an alien in the garage, Mana starts to wonder if her mother had her reasons for being overprotective.

It turns out, Mana's frumpy, timid mom is actually an alien hunter, and now she's missing--taking a piece of technology with her that everyone wants their hands on, both human and alien. Now her supposed partner, a guy that Mana has never met or heard of (and who seems way too young and way too arrogant to be hunting aliens), has shown up, ordering Mana to come with him. Now, on her own for the first time, Mana will have to find a way to save her mother--and maybe the world--and hope she's up to the challenge.

My rating: ★★★☆☆

This book is a good example of a good premise but not-so-great execution. I liked the idea of aliens and the main character’s mother who’s suddenly missing being an actual alien hunter... that is very cool!

Review: The Nightmare Charade (The Arkwell Academy #3) by Mindee Arnett

Title: The Nightmare Charade

Series: The Arkwell Academy #3

Previous books in this series: The Nightmare Affair (#1) The Nightmare Dilemma (#2)

Author: Mindee Arnett

Genre: YA, urban fantasy

Publication date: August 2015

Published by: Tor Teen

Source: Purchased hardcover

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Synopsis: It’s her junior year at Arkwell Academy, and Dusty Everhart just wants to be alone with her boyfriend, Eli Booker. But fate is literally keeping them apart. See, Dusty is a Nightmare, who can enter Eli’s dreams to find clues to the future, but an ancient curse predicts that any romance between them is doomed to end in tragedy. Dusty and Eli are willing to take that risk, but the authorities disagree—and have assigned a chaperone to make sure their relationship is strictly platonic.

As if that’s not bad enough, they’ve been recruited by the Department of Intelligence for Magickind Secrecy (D.I.M.S.) to use their dream-seer bond to help recover the most powerful object of black magic known to magickind. The Animus Mortem can raise the dead by stealing the souls of the living... which makes tracking it down a genuine matter of life and death.

To make matters worse, one of Dusty’s friends is accused of murder and is counting on her to clear his name.

Dusty has too many dreams, too many commitments, and too many people looking over her shoulder, but a Nightmare seldom plays by the rules. Curse or no curse, chaperone or not, she has to go deep into Eli’s dreams if she’s going to find the truth—and discover a way for them to truly be together at last!

My rating: ★★★★☆

I first started this series ELEVEN years ago, and I’m only completing it now...

Review: The Nightmare Dilemma (The Arkwell Academy #2) by Mindee Arnett

Title: The Nightmare Dilemma

Series: The Arkwell Academy #2

Previous book in this series: The Nightmare Affair

Author: by Mindee Arnett

Genre: YA, urban fantasy

Publication date: January 2014

Published by: Tor Teen

Source: Won paperback ARC in giveaway

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Synopsis: Dusty Everhart might be able to predict the future through the dreams of her crush, Eli Booker, but that doesn’t make her life even remotely easy. When one of her mermaid friends is viciously assaulted and left for dead, and the school’s jokester, Lance Rathbone, is accused of the crime, Dusty’s as shocked as everybody else. Lance needs Dusty to prove his innocence by finding the real attacker, but that’s easier asked than done. Eli’s dreams are no help, more nightmares than prophecies.

To make matters worse, Dusty’s ex-boyfriend has just been acquitted of conspiracy and is now back at school, reminding Dusty of why she fell for him in the first place. The Magi Senate needs Dusty to get close to him, to discover his real motives. But this order infuriates Eli, who has started his own campaign for Dusty’s heart.

As Dusty takes on both cases, she begins to suspect they’re connected to something bigger. And there’s something very wrong with Eli’s dreams, signs that point to a darker plot than they could have ever imagined.

My rating: ★★★★☆

It had been a while since I read the first book in this series, I think almost 10 years, but despite that, I decided to not re-read it before going into this book. I love re-reading books but I have actually read The Nightmare Affair twice, so I thought I would be okay. And I was! I had a vague memory of what went on in the last book, but this book also did a pretty good job of touching on the important things that happened in The Nightmare Affair, so I was very happy about that.

Review: Seriously Wicked by Tina Connolly

Title: Seriously Wicked

Series: Seriously Wicked #1

Author: Tina Connolly

Genre: YA, paranormal

Publication date: May 2015

Published by: Tor Teen

Source: Own Hardcover

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Synopsis:

The only thing worse than being a witch is living with one.

Camellia’s adopted mother wants Cam to grow up to be just like her. Problem is, Mom’s a seriously wicked witch.

Cam’s used to stopping the witch’s crazy schemes for world domination. But when the witch summons a demon, he gets loose—and into Devon, the cute new boy at school.

Now Cam’s suddenly got bigger problems than passing Algebra. Her friends are getting zombiefied. Their dragon is tired of hiding in the RV garage. For being a shy boy-band boy, Devon is sure kissing a bunch of girls. And a phoenix hidden in the school is going to explode on the night of the Halloween Dance.

To stop the demon before he destroys Devon’s soul, Cam might have to try a spell of her own. But if she’s willing to work spells like the witch...will that mean she’s wicked too?

My rating: ★★★★☆
Seriously Wicked was a fun, light-hearted, cute, quirky read with a good dose of magic thrown in! And you all know how much I love me some magical, witchy reads! I loved this book’s take on witches—the whole magical aspect was really cool and well explained. Plus, it has a super cute cover that is actually what caught my attention in the first place!

Review: The Nightmare Affair (The Arkwell Academy #1) by Mindee Arnett

Title: The Nightmare Affair

Series: The Arkwell Academy #1

Author: Mindee Arnett

Genre: YA, paranormal, urban fantasy

Publication date: March 5th, 2013

Published by: Tor Teen

Source: from the publishers via Netgalley

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Synopsis:

Sixteen-year-old Dusty Everhart breaks into houses late at night, but not because she’s a criminal. No, she’s a Nightmare.

Literally.

Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for magickind, and living in the shadow of her mother’s infamy, is hard enough. But when Dusty sneaks into Eli Booker’s house, things get a whole lot more complicated. He’s hot, which means sitting on his chest and invading his dreams couldn’t get much more embarrassing. But it does. Eli is dreaming of a murder.

Then Eli’s dream comes true.

Now Dusty has to follow the clues—both within Eli’s dreams and out of them—to stop the killer before more people turn up dead. And before the killer learns what she’s up to and marks her as the next target.

My rating: ★★★★★
This book was UH-MAZE-ING! It was just great and a very fun read! And I love the title of the book...it's very fitting :)

Review: Girl of Nightmares (Anna #2) by Kendare Blake

Title: Girl of Nightmares

Series: Anna Dressed in Blood #2

Previous book in this series: Anna Dressed in Blood

Author: Kendare Blake

Genre: YA, horror

Publication date: August 7th 2012

Published by: Tor Teen

Source: Owned hardcover

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Synopsis:

It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can't move on.

His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live—not walk around half dead. He knows they're right, but in Cas's eyes, no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with.

Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong...these aren't just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.

Cas doesn't know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn't deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it's time for him to return the favor.

My rating: ★★★★★
I was soo anxious for this book...I couldn't wait to find out what happened to Anna! It was fantastic (though I have to admit, I liked the first book better)!

Review: Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna #1) by Kendare Blake

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood

Series: Anna Dressed in Blood #1

Author: Kendare Blake

Genre: YA, horror

Publication date: August 2011

Published by: Tor Teen

Source: Borrowed from library...then bought a hardcover copy ;)

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Synopsis:

Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story...

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.

My rating: ★★★★★
"Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story..." Heh, I love this quote...It totally describes Anna Dressed in Blood perfectly!