Dark fantasy YA that entwines magic and realism to great effect. Five teens bond one summer when they each place something they want to rid themselves of in a pit in the woods...only for those shadows to arise once more and haunt them....
With friendships and sanity at breaking point, can they lay these ghosts to rest?

I liked the premise of this book however I have been unable to finish it as I did not enjoy the writing style or characterisation. It’s a shame given the big comparisons made to Stephen King and Stranger Things. Not for me unfortunately

What in the world did I just read. I’m pretty sure this is one of the craziest things I’ve read this year.. maybe even ever. But anyway this was a story of love, friendship.. nightmares, horror, killer teddy bears, creepy crows and pretty much killer everything. I don’t know what I was expecting when I went into this book but it definitely wasn’t that. I’ll be honest this book is a little scary and violent and I’m glad I’m reading it in the daytime as I’m a little bit of a wimp. The thing is it literally comes out of nowhere. Arkle is my favourite character in this book. Even if he had a thing for an inside out (literally) squirrel called Rosemary. Yes it’s that kind of book.

This was such a quick read and I couldn’t stop or put it down as I had to know what happened to the group and what else the box had in store for them. My main gripe is that I received a copy of this from netgalley and in some of the chapters there was no spacing so all the words ran together which made it hard to read. However I’m grateful for the chance to read and review this book.

I received a free ebook copy of this book for an honest review.

I am quite late in writing my review of this book, and this is partly due to issues with my device and formatting. Unfortunately, this isn't the only reason why I've had this book on my Kindle for several months and am only stating what I think about it now.

I will be reviewing the actual story, and my rating isn't affected my technical difficulties.

The entire premise of the story sounds fascinating. I am quite a fan of teenagers/young adults/pretty much anyone, stumbling across an idea that's fed to them and that leads to terrible events occurring to them. The idea of incorporating a time capsule, and a group of kids who are only friends due to circumstances so their ties to each other is fragile, grabbed my attention and I started it up a few days after downloading it.

The issue with all of this is though the premise is interesting, the actual way it's laid out in the novel is disconcerting. There are too many characters involved in this, who either nearly an entire chapter dedicated just to their point of view, or else they have no input other than a few paragraphs. This back and forth stutters the story each time, pulling me out of the story. I believe the reason for this is to push the story along, to hang another tidbit in front of the reader but instead it just aggravated me. There was too much swinging back and forth, none of the threads appeared to be joining together and I was simply being led by the nose with another 'No, this is what you should be paying attention to'.

At the point where completely different characters came in, in order to try and explain a bit more about the Sacrifice Box, I had had enough. I resorted to simply skimming along, barely paying any attention to it and at the end I simply deleted it. I felt nothing by the end of it, didn't care about any of the characters and couldn't explain what the rest of the story was about. The horror fell flat, there were too many character's stories running alongside each other and I didn't care who died or who survived.

This honestly feels as though it needed a few more read-throughs with an editor before it was up for publishing. I wouldn't list this novel as finished, and will not be looking into any further books this writer produces.

It’s the 1980s on an unnamed island somewhere off the coast of an unnamed mainland. Five friends have discovered a mysterious box, along with its mysterious rules, deep in the mysterious woods. They each sacrifice an item to the box, expecting nothing really to come of it, but four years later, after their once tight-knit group has drifted apart, those sacrifices come back to haunt them.

This is marketed as a YA horror, which I can kind of understand as it definitely has the bones of a good horror novel. Unfortunately it fell a little flat for me. There’s not a huge amount of substance to either the plot or most of the characters. There are several points of view used, including snippets of flashback to whomever used the box before Sep and his friends, but we don’t spend enough time with any one character to really get to know them – except for maybe Sep himself.

There are also a couple of secondary storylines that could have been either expanded upon or scrapped altogether, notably the “romance” between Sep’s mother and their school headmaster, which is only touched upon apparently to make Sep uncomfortable. (And who can blame him, I’d be uncomfortable with my parent dating my headteacher!)

I also felt some scenes were a little too dark for the YA market. I think there are going to be people picking this up who are unprepared for the level of gore involved – there are some pretty nasty scenes involving wild animals that I could have happily not read.

It’s a good novel, and I’d consider trying other work by the author, but this one missed the mark for me a little.

When a bunch of kids, September "Sep" Hope, Arkle, Mack, Lamb and Hadley discover an ancient stone box, they decide to each sacrifice something important to them to cement their friendship. As they do this they make a pact: never return to the box at night; they'll never visit it alone; and they'll never take back their offerings. Break any of these rules and who knows what could happen...

A few years later in 1982, they are thrown together again as things started to go awry and it's clear someone has opened the box, because terrible things start happening. They try to rectify what they've done but nothing, it seems, will work, and like Pandora's box - once it's opened all the horror they can think of are released into their lives. And the box wants revenge.

From the very first scenes I was totally hooked. Why were these kids sacrificing objects they loved for this box? What will happen if they disobey the rules? Because you just know someone is going to, right? I was surprised this creepy horror was aimed at young adults, as there are some great, yet gross and even some pretty cruel stories within this book! It's not for the fainthearted ya readers. That's for sure.

An entertaining trip back in time, reminiscent of those old 80s films revolving around a bunch of kids having to deal with much more than they bargained for, with dire consequences to contend with if they don't make a stand. Yes, it does sound rather like Stand by Me, with supernatural elements and for good reason too. I enjoyed it a lot and thought it had a very English, village feel to it. I don't know whether that was just me, or not, but its the impression I got as I read this.

Overall The Sacrifice Box had a crazy, pacy edge to it, alongside some heartfelt moments with characters which ended up feeling like my friends. An engaging coming of age book about friendship, love and hidden terrifying truths just waiting to resurface.

Thanks to NetGalley for my copy. This is my honest opinion of The Sacrifice Box.

It was ok i guess. It took me absolutely ages to trawl through it because i constantly lost interest and found something better to do.

I really hate to give up on this one but I have discovered that I just can't 'do' horror books any more. This one has all the makings of a good horror story. There are interesting characters, there are inklings of nasty things to come, more than enough to draw in a lover of horror stories. I've just discovered that I'm no longer in that category & having got to know some of the characters I really don't want to know the awful things that are probably going to happen to them.

I've given it three stars but I'm sure it would be a lot higher if I still enjoyed this genre.

Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me have a go at this book. Sorry I couldn't finish it.

Sep, Arkle, Mack, Lamb and Hadley are thrown together for the summer holidays, forming an unlikely friendship. In their exploration of the local woods they find an ancient stone box. They decide, or rather are compelled, to each make a sacrifice to the box....an object that means something important to them. They make a secret pact never to return to the box at night, never visit it alone and never take back their offering. Four years later, the group have drifted apart. But then strange things start to happen and they are thrown back together because one of them has broken the rules and no everyone in their small community is in danger, them most of all.

Never have I hovered more between a rating. There were times I really liked this book - usually in the interaction between Sep and Arkle, and Mario's (Seps boss) all too infrequent appearances. And then there were times I scanned through, quite bored, which tended to be the action scenes funnily enough. I think the issue for me is this would make a better script than novel. It's very cinematic (it would make a great series) which is fine. But the only character that has been given any substance is Sep, with Arkle maybe getting a bit more than the others. And because of that when the gang were in peril I didn't care much. In fact strangely it was the fate of side characters that I cared more for. A strange thing.... But essentially it's quite enjoyable for an adult but is most definitely more for the audience it is aimed at.

A great story with a brilliant, fast moving plot, scary and memorable once it gets going

The blurb for this book immediately reminded me of some of the horror books I’d read in the early 90s—mostly Stephen King paperbacks my mother gave me, so this ‘80s + horror + kids’ combination is one I’ve known in quite a while, even though I haven’t read such books in at least a decade or more. I suppose watching Stranger Things also put me back in the mood for those, and so here I was, getting into ‘The Sacrifice Box’.

As far as horror stories go, a lot of the usual ingredients are here. Strange happenings. Kids who find they have to gather to stop something evil from happening (and they can’t tell their parents, because they’d just sound crazy). School life with its teachers, sports kids, and bullies and picking on a couple of the main characters, but all things considered, those pale compared to the real threat. A mysterious item with mysterious rules to follow, rules that get, of course, broken—madness ensues. Dead animals coming back to life to attack people. Noises at night. A tiny town on an isolated island. The Halley comet looming over it all, like a bad omen.

All in all, I liked the setting itself, although at times it ‘tried a little too hard’, so to speak. However, where the book lacked a lot was the characters. The main point of view is Sep’s, interspersed with chapters viewed through the eyes of a couple of minor characters, like Mario, the vet doubling as chippy owner, in whose restaurant Sep works; or Thom and Aileen, two older people who also opened the box and made sacrifices back in 1941 when the war was raging (the story’s set in the UK, by the way—it’s not always very clear, as the atmosphere feels very ‘US-like’). The problem is that, as far as the other four kids are concerned, I didn’t get more than superficial impressions about them. For instance, Lamb is the hockey player, lives on a farm with her father, and lost her mother when she was a kid, yet apart from that and from her anger at whoever broke the rules of the box, I never really ‘saw’ her, who she was, how she really felt, her fears, and so on; and in such a horror-driven story, with such a concept of a box into which a band of children placed items loaded with both good and bad emotions, childhood fears, hopes and feelings would’ve been a necessary element to play on for all the characters, not just one.

I also didn’t see the point to the bully. At first, I expected him to play more of a part—perhaps the kind of character who ends up completely crazy, starts muttering about having to ‘kill the evil’, grabs a rifle, becomes an impediment to the kids’ efforts to restore the order (it’s a bit cliché, but it’d have its place in such a plot). And then… It just petered out. In the same way, I would've appreciated more of a conclusion regarding the events and the box itself: the epilogue doesn't shed light on all the things that should've followed (how did the parents react, what about all the dead people, how were events explained officially, etc.). Here, too, some plot ends were left dangling.

Conclusion: A fast read, and rather entertaining in a superficial way; but the novel kept feeling like an attempt to surf on the “Stranger Things” wave, and didn't live up to the kind of books/stories it tried to be an homage to.

I found this book immensely enjoyable. The plot is imaginative and a novel concept, and I enjoyed the way that the characters friendships were explored through the events happening.

Would recommend to any horror fan

Totally adored this book. Although I had it here I also went out and bought a copy as I loved it so much. I think that it takes the conventions of this kind of writing and totally subverts them to bring the reader something totally fresh and exciting and it certainly had me hooked from the start. Martin Stewart certainly can write! I felt that the characterization of Sep, Arkle, Mack, Lamb and Hadley was extremely strong indeed and the ending was something that I was longing to reach and yet kept delaying as I really didn't want it to end. I am always on the look out for fresh and original voices for our senior library and to get our senior students reading more diverse and interesting fiction and I'll certainly be recommending this to them. The Sacrifice Box is a first rate piece of contemporary fiction that I kept thinking about, for a long time after I'd read it. I really hope to hear more from Martin Stewart and I'm looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next!

Starting in 1982, Martin Stewart’s second, stand-alone book, The Sacrifice Box, is an admirable combination of terrifying and dark-humour. Following the story of Sep (September), Mack, Arkle, Lamb and Hadley through their childhood summer when they discover a stone box in the forest. The box whispers rules. Never come to the box alone. Never open it after dark. Never take back your sacrifice. Their sacrifices to the box bind them together. When four years later strange things start to happen Sep, Mack, Arkle, Lamb and Hadley find themselves drawn together.

For me, the book raced along helped by the strong, witty characters. You’re dragged through the chapters and a series of terrifying events. Sep, our protagonist, is an intelligent loner who has isolated himself from the others. Lamb, daughter of a farmer, is a fierce female, part teenage-girl, part woman-in-charge and part Wonder Woman. Arkle, the comedian of the group is a wonderful character. Throughout he lightens the mood, making the page-turning horror humorous and, frankly in some parts, readable. Mack, the football hero, and, Hadley, the lost soul with hidden depth, round the group off well.

The Sacrifice Box is shocking. I didn’t expect this level of supernatural-horror from a book written for a young adult audience. More than a couple of times I put the book down to give myself a break. I even finished certain chapters in public, knowing there is no way psychotic children’s toys or possessed zombies could get me in the daylight.

I enjoyed the 80s setting. It’s written well, with enough hints at the era to attract a thrill from an adult audience, but not enough to distract you from the plot of the story. A level of detail with some of the 80s-based revival books and shows can be distracting. Acting as deliberate plot functions to mask a bad storyline, which isn’t happening here.

There was one part disappointing part, the epilogue. The book ends strong, but Stewart takes us to a conclusion which should wrap up the adventure. For me, this did the opposite leaving a range of questions. So many, I’ve considered emailing Stewart to find out how certain parts were so easily swept away.

Stewart is masterful. He weaves a chilling, supernatural plot with a playfulness and brings the darkest chapters back from the edge. I suspect Stephen King would be impressed. But, I’m warning you, if you like your fiction conclusive, neat and tidy, the final pages may leave you hollow.

I was a little disappointed by this read - although the premise was intriguing and the setting was atmospheric, I found the narrative style a little annoying. It used lots of superfluous descriptions, and to me, just felt like it was trying to be 'clever'. Now, this can work, of course, but I found it detracted from the story, which I believe in the most important part of any novel. I'm aware this may be an unfair opinion as I personally enjoy writing that is to-the-point yet impactful – I'm very much a less is more person when it comes to narrative style. Despite this, I have read many glowing reviews of the novel, so am aware that it may have just missed to mark for me personally, but will likely delight others!

The book was well written and the characters were well formed, unfortunately I feel I struggled with this book as I a’m not in the target demographic. I think if I were a teenager again I would have loved this as I read a lot of Point Horror and R.LStein at the time, and it reminded me a lot of them.
I think if you know a teenager who likes gore and horror they would love this, it just wasn’t for me.

This was a very exciting, action packed and suspenseful novel. I was riveted, but in places found myself horrified. Which is no criticism, except that this novel is marketed to young adult readers when as an adult reader I had found myself scared!

The Sacrifice Box seems inspired by it's predecessors IT (by Stephen King), and possibly by the TV series, Stranger Things. If you enjoy the horror genre, you will surely enjoy this!

I'm afraid that I didn't take to this book at all and almost wish that I could have read a sneak preview to give myself an idea of whether I would have liked the book or not.
Maybe somehow I will dip back in and read it but I didn't take to the characters who had odd names nor the story line, which I thought should have kept me gripped more than I did.
I can't put it down to being in the Young Adult genre because there's a number of books in this area that I've read and enjoyed.
Maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance and I'll see if I can dip in at different times, in the hope of having a different and more positive review to write.

I couldn't put this book down - it's so atmospheric and seriously creepy. It even manages to make a teddy bear scary! The cast of characters are well drawn, all with interesting backstories and I loved the 80s setting - very Stranger Things. Stewart does a great job of drawing out the tension and increasing the drama and horror right up until the end. I'd have loved a little more mythology behind the box and the end felt a tad rushed after such a big build up, but overall I really enjoyed this one.

I didn't like this book. It was a mess and I had to keep rereading things to make sure I was reading them right. It seemed that things just happened out of the blue.

Let's start with the plot. It was alright. A cursed box and a promised made by teenagers, sounds fun, count me it. Well, it wasn't really developed all that well. Why? Because it felt that things were happening just for the sake of it. You have no idea how many things happened to the main character. Seriously, I have no idea how the author didn't stop to think that maybe he should just kill the character because there's no way he could still be standing. Also some of the deaths didn't make sense even if some of the characters justified them.

The characters were ok aswell. I couldn't connect with them as a group because it seemed like their friendship was suposed to be a knock-off of the friendship on "IT" by Stephen King. Also as individuals none of them were all that good. Only the main character was likeable.
It started slow and at around the middle of the book things started picking up. From there onwards everything was a mess, things just happened out of the blue just to have some action going. I didn't enjoy myself at all while reading this book. It's a shame because it had a good premise.

Oh well...