Review: The Luminaries by Susan Dennard

Title: The Luminaries
Author: Susan Dennard
Series: The Luminaries #1
Genre: Paranormal/Mystery/YA
Publisher: Tor Teen
Publication Date: November 1, 2022
Edition: 384 pages, Kindle Edition
Source: Library
Purchase: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | BAM | Bookshop | Powell's | Thriftbooks

 

 

 

 

Synopsis:

   A haunting contemporary fantasy, about the magic it takes to face your fears in a nightmare-filled forest, and the mettle required to face the secrets hiding in the dark corners of your own family.

   Hemlock Falls isn't like other towns. You won't find it on a map, your phone won't work here, and the forest outside town might just kill you. Only the Luminaries, a society of ancient guardians, stand between humanity and the nightmares of the forest that rise each night.
   Winnie Wednesday, an exile from the Luminaries, is determined to restore her family's good name by taking the deadly hunter trials on her sixteenth birthday. But when she turns to her ex best friend Jay Friday for help, they discover a danger lurking in the forest no one in Hemlock Falls is prepared for.
   Not all monsters can be slain, and not all nightmares are confined to the dark.

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   I had so much fun reading this, I took part in the "Sooz your own adventure" in 2019 that sparked her to revisit this idea. There were a lot of Easter-eggs from that in this book that added to the fun. 

 

   Winnie is a great character. Her actions and attitude match her age, which is honestly a breath of fresh air when it comes to YA. She deals with her problems in very much a "teenager" way. Her distrust for how her and her family was treated after the first trial compared to how they were treated before was believable, but I would have liked to see more of an internal conflict with her wanting to be back in the fold and the resentment about the treatment. She does confront people about it, and airs her feelings. But being conflicted about it would add something. Sure, she always wanted to be a hunter. But at the same time, she would have to work with people who threw her and her mother to the curb basically at the drop of a hat.

 

   This book has three mysteries in it. One, what is killing the other Nightmares in the forest. Two, who is the "Daywalker" (werewolf), and what is the cryptic message Winnie's father left her? The "who is the werewolf" seems, to have been answered but I also wonder if that was a red-herring. It might not be, but maybe that will be answered in the sequel. The mystery of "what is killing the other nightmares" was also some-what answered but only Winnie really knows as nobody else has seen it yet. I'd say that is the negative part of this book. Too many questions were asked and none of them were fully answered. 

 

   The clan stuff, even though I had some per-knowledge of the world, is still confusing. I might have to look the blog post explaining this again. But I also think it should have been explained a touch better in the narrative. This book could have used another maybe 50 pages to flesh somethings out, and to maybe answer at least one of those questions.  

 

 I have some theories about who the Diana is, but I will leave that out for spoilers about other parts of the story. I am looking forward to the sequel.