Holly Horror (Holly Horror #1) by Michelle Jabès Corpora #bookreview #YA #horror #paranormal #mystery

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Title: Holly Horror

Author:  Michelle Jabès Corpora

Publisher: Penguin Workshop

Publication Date: Aug 15, 2023

Page Count:  321

My rating: 4 stars

About the book:

A beloved classic reimagined with a dark twist.

After her parents’ painful divorce, Evie Archer hopes that moving to Ravenglass, Massachusetts, is the fresh start that her family needs. But Evie quickly realizes that her new home—known by locals as the Horror House—carries its own dark past after learning about Holly Hobbie, who mysteriously vanished in her bedroom one night.

But traces of Holly linger in the Horror House and slowly begin to take over Evie’s life. A strange shadow follows her everywhere she goes, and Evie starts to lose sight of what’s real and what isn’t the more she learns about The Lost Girl.

Can Evie find out what happened the night of Holly’s disappearance? Or is history doomed to repeat itself in the Horror House?

Holly Horror by Michelle Jabès Corpora is the first book in the young adult horror series by the same name. This new series is based on the old Holly Hobbie character which was cute and cuddly but this series definitely puts a nightmarish twist on the character.

Evie Archer and her family have moved to Ravenglass, Massachusetts for a fresh start in their lives and are hoping their new home and town are just want they needed. Evie quickly finds out though that her new home is known by the locals as the Horror House and thought to be haunted after events of the past.

Evie doesn’t start off scared of her new home as much as just wanting answers to the local rumors. Looking further Evie finds out that Holly Hobbie mysteriously vanished from the home one night and when Evie starts seeing and sensing things around her new home she questions whether it’s real or all in her imagination but is determined to get answers.

First thing I would mention with Holly Horror by Michelle Jabès Corpora is that while I did label this as young adult with teen characters I do think it falls on the young side of that reading range but not quite middle grade either, so somewhere at the end of one to the middle of the other range in ages. As for the story here though it’s a pretty good haunted house tale with plenty of scarier moments involved for the horror fans of this age. The story was somewhat wrapped up in the end but also left some bread crumbs laying around to entice readers onward to book two.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online:

Goodreads  /  Amazon

About the author:
Michelle Jabès Corpora is a writer, editor, community organizer, and martial artist. In addition to working in the publishing industry for more than a dozen years as an editor and concept developer, she has ghostwritten five novels in a long-running middle-grade mystery series. American Horse Tales: The Dust Bowl was Michelle’s first novel under her own name. Her second novel, The Fog of War: Martha Gellhorn at the D-Day Landings (Pushkin Press), published in 2021.