Review: Heartwood Box

Title: Heartwood Box
Author: Ann Aguirre
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller
Publisher: Tor Teen
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: July 9, 2019
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

A dark, romantic YA suspense novel with an SF edge and plenty of drama, layering the secrets we keep and how appearances can deceive, from the New York Times bestselling author.

In this tiny, terrifying town, the lost are never found. When Araceli Flores Harper is sent to live with her great-aunt Ottilie in her ramshackle Victorian home, the plan is simple. She’ll buckle down and get ready for college. Life won’t be exciting, but she’ll cope, right?

Wrong. From the start, things are very, very wrong. Her great-aunt still leaves food for the husband who went missing twenty years ago, and local businesses are plastered with MISSING posters. There are unexplained lights in the woods and a mysterious lab just beyond the city limits that the locals don’t talk about. Ever. When she starts receiving mysterious letters that seem to be coming from the past, she suspects someone of pranking her or trying to drive her out of her mind. To solve these riddles and bring the lost home again, Araceli must delve into a truly diabolical conspiracy, but some secrets fight to stay buried…

Review:

This book was a combination of genres. It was mostly a young adult thriller, but there were aspects of paranormal fiction, science fiction, and even historical fiction. Though this seems like a large mix of genres, it worked in this story.

The story was quite creepy at the beginning. I couldn’t figure out what was going to happen. It was heartbreaking to see Araceli develop a relationship with a boy from a different time, while knowing that they couldn’t be together. It was strange, the way this story resolved into science fiction. I thought it would just be a paranormal or supernatural story, but it had science behind it.

I really enjoyed this story!

Thank you Tor Teen for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

Have you read Heartwood Box? What did you think of it?