Blackbrooke

Title:
Blackbrooke

Author:
Emma Silver

About the Author: (CrookedCats Publishing)

Emma was born and raised in Manchester but now resides in Liverpool.

Blackbrooke is her debut young adult horror novel after spending many years honing her skills drafting short stories and devouring horror through the ages from R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps collection through to Stephen King.Emma is also the author of a semi-biographical account of her dad’s years in a rock band in the 1970s, Driving Exile.Outside of her day job in public relations, Emma has worked for a Manchester entertainment magazine, reviewing theatre shows gigs and movies.She gets most of her ideas and is inspired by music and also the fighting spirit of young people who aren’t afraid to challenge the norm and stand up for what they believe in. This fleeting ‘moment’ in life is what she tries to capture in her writing.

Summary: (Goodreads)
I live in Blackbrooke and you would have had to be living under a rock to never have heard of it before now. This town is different to most others…Humans aren’t the only residents…”
The residents of Blackbrooke share their town with the Creatures, or Crits as they are known. Grotesque, roaming the streets at night looking for food, their presence means humans have to live by the Rules, keeping them indoors and forbidding them of basic desires.
The most important Rule?
Don’t be a ‘walk out’!
Straight-A student, Liberty Connor, hates the Crits and the endless Rules she and her tight knit group of friends have to live by.
Planning her new life on the Outside with her boyfriend, Gabriel, Liberty whiles away her days waiting to turn 18, so they can leave and be free. That is, until the world she thinks she knows begins to unravel…
Her friends start to walk out. So she’s told. However, something’s not right. Things don’t add up.
Liberty faces a race against time to discover what’s going on with the Creatures of Blackbrooke.
Is it them she has to fear, or something much closer to home?
Blackbrooke is a Young Adult horror novel that has you on the edge of your seat.

I'd Recommend to:
Teenagers

My Rating:
4.8/5

My Thoughts:
In a town surrounded by woods, there are two worlds peacefully living together, or so it seems. There is the daytime world of the humans, and there is the nighttime world where Creatures thrive. There are rules set in place to keep these worlds separate, and if they are broken, there will be deaths.
Unfortunately for Libby Conner, deaths seem to be occurring a lot lately. Her mother is practically dead, in a coma-like state all day and night, her best friend now isn't her friend, classmates "walk out" and do not live, then her boyfriend goes, followed by her current best friend. Life isn't in Liberty's favor right now.
But something just doesn't add up. Why would Gabriel and Gemma do that? It doesn't make sense, and Lib, along with the help of Noah and Cassius, and maybe a hippie named Denzel, plan on getting to the bottom of it and making sure there is a stop to the strange behavior of the townspeople.
It's a dangerous mission that could very well get her, and all her friends and family, killed, but that's a chance she's going to have to be willing to take.
I started this book at around 8 or 9 pm last night. I read it until I literally could not keep my eyes open any longer at 4 am this morning. Then when I re-awoke at 11 am, I continued to read it until I was finished. That is how much of an enthralling, suspenseful book it is.
When I got to the last 95% of it (I have a kindle, so it shows percentages, not pages), I knew that it was going to end on a cliffhanger and that I would need to read the next book in the series. My suspicion proved to be true, and I am looking forward to the next addition.
I do have to say though, that this story is a bit emotional, and it does mention suicides a lot. And it mentions deaths. A lot.
I'm just gonna lay it flat out there, suicide is NEVER the answer. Legit, no matter how bad your life seems, it cannot be that bad. There are plenty of hotlines you can call if you need help. Don't be afraid to get some.