Burden Falls was a fun mix between traditional thriller and supernatural. Penguin Teen describes it as “Riverdale meets The Haunting of Hill House”, which I thought was a really fitting description, because as I was reading it, I was getting major Riverdale vibes, if Riverdale had a little more of a New England-y, old money, old families type vibe.
Burden Falls follows Ava, a young woman who recently lost her family in a horrific car accident which left Ava alive, but scarred both physically and mentally. Burden Falls is the kind of town with legends, including local legend Black-Eyed Sadie, the ghost of a young woman with her dark, empty eye sockets. Ava’s family believes that they see Sadie before they die, and she believes that not only did she see Sadie before their car accident, but also that she’s been seeing her again.
And then people start dying. And a lot of evidence points toward Ava as the killer, and she is finding it harder and harder to turn suspicion away from her. But could the local ghost really be to blame?
I really liked how this book mixed thriller and mystery aspects with the ghostly, more supernatural side of things. It really kept you guessing all the way through as the characters knew there had to be a human among them doing these things, but couldn’t help but also wonder about this local lore that they had all grown up with. They even brought old school ghost lore into the modern day by giving a couple of the characters a pretty popular YouTube ghost hunting show, which I thought was an interesting addition.
The overall vibe is very spooky, and you really get a cool, creepy vibe from the setting of Burden Falls itself. There’s also a little bit of hate-to-love romance, so if you’re into that enemies to lovers thing but in a contemporary setting, this might be the one for you. I also liked the little bit of sidebar about Ava’s comic book she is working on, and how she pairs up with one of the other characters to complete it. If this were real web comic, I’d definitely check it out, so if this pops up somewhere as something I can actually look at, someone definitely let me know.
I never ended up reading Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis, but after checking out Burden Falls, I’m a little more interested in picking that one up, too. Ellis does a great job with the spookiness, and overall, this was an enjoyable read. It’s always fun to solve the mystery along with the characters and guess at what’s going on, and this had that added element of watching in horror as the characters go down a path you know is leading toward doom and attempting to scream at the page to help them out, but there’s nothing you can do but sit back and watch.
If you like spooky books and creepy settings that give you Hocus Pocus vibes and trying to solve mysteries that have a whole hell of a lot of shady characters milling around that just make you want to give them squinty eyes, then you will love Burden Falls and you should definitely grab a copy when it’s released on August 24th—juuuust in time for the beginning of spooky season (even though we all know I think spooky season starts roughly mid-July).
Has anyone else read this ARC? Are you planning on checking it out? Should I also grab a copy of Harrow Lake? Let me know in the comments! <3