Title: Something Wicked
Author: Renée Harrell
Genre: Horror, Young Adult, Paranormal
Age Group: Young Adult
Rating: 3 stars
Purchase: Amazon
What if a man loved so deeply and so selfishly, he was willing to do whatever it took – including murder — to reincarnate his lost lover? And what would happen if he thought his true love had returned to this earth, without any knowledge of who she truly was?
What would happen next? High school student Ann Lippens is about to find out….
Cody said, “You were innocent when I met you. Innocent when I lost you. You’re innocent now.”
“I’m not exactly innocent.”
“You’re pure.”
Pure? Ann questioned. What’s that supposed to mean? I’m a virgin?
Then she thought, What if I wasn’t?
When Ann meets Cody and his band in a local club, she agrees the band has some weird attraction, but she’s not interested, having just broken up with her boyfriend. Her best friend Kim, however, is more than willing to dive head over heels into a relationship with lead singer Cody. But the more Kim hangs out with him, the more she starts to change, and Ann suspects something may be wrong.
Ann does some research into Cody, and his odd resemblance with Bobby Winters, a musician who passed away ages ago. She finds out what happened to Bobby and his band, the Reapers, and the story is more than a little terrifying. If Cody is completely obsessed with the singer, than he may even be dangerous.
But what if it goes even further? The more Ann finds out about Cody, the more she grows convinced something supernatural and eerie is going on…
By the third-or-so chapter, I was so sucked into the story that I couldn’t finish reading. The book pulled me in. The characters were intriguing, and I wanted to find out who Cody was and what exactly he was upto.
But then, the appeal greatly diminished. Halfway through, the book gets a little jumpy, moving from one scene to the next, and characters lack consistency. On top of that, the “big reveal” is kind of anticlimatic. I’d expected horror, since the book was labeled as such, but instead I got something closer to paranormal romance. Not bad, just not what I’d expected.
I did like Ann though. She doesn’t give up, she’s stubborn when needs be, and she’s brave, even in the face of real danger.
The author has a great writing style, and the plot was decent, I was just a little disappointed it’s not actually horror. The book had a lot of potential to throw in some original elements, but it stayed too close to well-known tropes for me.
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