REVIEW: Eventide

Hi everyone! Today I’m reviewing one of my November ARCs, Eventide! I’m doing really good so far with reading my ARCs, let’s hope I can keep this up!

Eventide
by Sarah Goodman
Series: Standalone
Release date: November 6th 2020

Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Young Adult
Rating:  ★★★★☆

MADNESS, SECRETS, AND LIES

Wheeler, Arkansas, 1907

When their father descends into madness after the death of their mother, Verity Pruitt and her little sister Lilah find themselves on an orphan train to rural Arkansas.

In Wheeler, eleven-year-old Lilah is quickly adopted, but seventeen-year-old Verity is not. Desperate to stay close to her sister, Verity indentures herself as a farmhand. But even charming farm boy Abel Atchley can’t completely distract her from the sense that something is not quite right in this little town. Strange local superstitions abound, especially about the eerie old well at the center of the forest. The woods play tricks, unleashing heavy fog and bone-chilling cold…and sometimes visions of things that aren’t there.

But for Verity, perhaps most unsettling of all is the revelation that her own parents have a scandalous history in this very town. And as she tries to unearth the past, sinister secrets come with it—secrets that someone will go to violent lengths to protect….

A haunting tale of long-buried secrets, small-town scandal, and single-minded vengeance by talented debut novelist Sarah Goodman.

I always love when a book crosses over into multiple genres, and this book definitely hit the mark. It’s historical fiction with a dash of mystery and fantasy mixed in. I completely devoured this book!

Verity was likeable and I liked seeing things through her point of view, especially since she was confident enough to say when she is wrong and apologize, which happened a few times throughout the book. I enjoyed the way she grew and became a different person by the end of the book.  I also loved her sister Lilah even though we don’t see her too often, we still get a sense of who she is as a person. And I’m so glad that the friendship that Verity formed with Della was so wholesome, because it DEFINITELY could’ve fallen into the girl hate stereotype.

As for the setting, I can’t remember if I ever read a book set in Arkansas, let alone Arkansas in the early 1900s, so that was surprisingly refreshing after so many famtasy worlds. The woods in the little town of Wheeler were talked about just enough to eat you know that there’s something not quite right going on there, and all the strange happenings around it give this book a really eerie and creepy vibe which I wasn’t expecting!

I think the pacing was good, the mystery slowly unfurled throughout the book and every answer we got made me ask two more questions. That does mean that the ending of the book felt a little bit rushed and the answers to some pretty big questions got squeezed in at the end and we didn’t get to explore the consequences of the characters actions as much as I would’ve liked.

Overall, I thought this was a fun quick read and with a November release date it will be perfect to read during the spooky season for people who want creepiness but not scare the shit out of you creepiness.