The Bad Ones
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
*NEW FROM MELISSA ALBERT - INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE HAZEL WOOD*
House of Hollow meets A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, THE BAD ONES is a page-turning supernatural thriller about four mysterious disappearances in a town haunted by a sinister magical history - and one girl searching for the truth.
‘A gripping story of friendship and the supernatural . . . Albert’s talent for YA fiction is magical and undeniable. I was sucked right into The Bad Ones from the start, and on the edge of my seat until the end.’ Independent
A GAME GONE WRONG. A MISSING FRIEND. A TOWN OF BURIED SECRETS . . .
Goddess, Goddess, count to five. In the morning, who's alive?
In a single winter's night, four people vanish without a trace across a small town . . .
Nora's best friend, Becca, is one of the lost. Determined to find her, Nora discovers a string of coded messages Becca has left. These clues point to another missing girl thirty years prior and a sinister urban legend: a goddess figure, who played an eerie role in Nora and Becca's own childhood games . . .
As Nora unravels the mystery, it's soon clear there are dark forces at work in her town - and they'll stop at nothing to keep their secrets buried deep.
‘A masterful horror-thriller’ Laura Steven
'The kind of horror that doesn’t just make you check under your bed – it makes you check your own reflection in the mirror . . . ’ Ava Reid
‘Addictively terrifying’ Courtney Summers, author of Sadie
Praise for Melissa Albert:
'I couldn't put it down' Karen M. McManus
'Taut, haunting, and potent as a witches brew' Krystal Sutherland
'Every line reads like an incantation' V.E. Schwab
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Four seemingly unconnected individuals vanish from suburban Illinois in this sinuous, horror-tinged YA fantasy from Albert (Our Crooked Hearts). Teen best friends Nora Powell and Becca Cross have been estranged for months, but when Becca texts "I love you" and nothing else late one night, Nora runs over to check on her. She returns home angry after waiting for hours on the Cross family's porch, where she found an abandoned drink and Becca's phone. Upon learning that three people went missing overnight, Nora panics, believing the disappearances are related to Becca's sudden radio silence. Then she starts finding clues left for her—ostensibly by Becca—alluding to a dangerous game they played as kids and the fictional goddesses it inspired them to create, leaving Nora with more questions than answers. Albert intercuts Nora's first-person narration with occasional third-person flashbacks from Becca's perspective that recount recent pivotal events, cleverly amplifying tension. Though the shaky integration of the supernatural elements leads to a somewhat unsatisfying denouement, Albert successfully evokes adolescence's fraught hyperreality using richly textured, authentically angsty characters and a storytelling style by turns ethereal and electric. Main characters cue as white. Ages 14–up.
