This book had me intrigued from the start. Stranger things meets Stephen King. What's not to like? I read this in one sitting it was that good the slow build into a fast paced horror this book has all the premise of a brilliant film. September (short for September) has one amazing summer where he and his friends Arkle, Mack, Hadley and Lamb find a box in a wood and decide to sacrifice things that would make them be friends. However move forward four years later,that summer is forgotten and Sep is looking for ways to leave. Suddenly the four are at his side again and something is wrong. Someone broke the rules and the box is wanting revenge. On their hunt to right this wrong we see this group of strangers become something more their feelings of friendship slowly coming to the forefront. We go back further into the past, uncover more secrets about the box and the power it has. Dead things come back to life , loved ones are killed and finally Sep realises what he must do to stop this once and for all. Wow this book was good. So much so I was desperate to continue reading more of Martin Stewarts. I've already but in my preorder!

There aren't many great horror writers for children who don't focus more on being disgusting rather than truly disturbing. This isn't one of those. This was definitely chilling with an air of menace all the way through although it did have the gross elements as well.
Five children on holiday (with the 80s cache of unusual names) come across a stone box and decide to leave a sacrifice inside. But there are rules to their sacrifice and they vow not to break them.
Four years later they have drifted apart. But then strange things start happening to them and they relaised that someone has broken the rules and something is out to get them.
As mentioned in other reviews, it has stirrings of Stranger Things and Stand by me but I found mainly it reminded me of early Stephen King.
It wasn't really my sort of book, by the cover it seemed like a fantasy but I gave it a shot and it was enjoyable. In honesty I was struggling up until about 45% of the way through and that's when it picked up for me.
The characters are generally likable or engaging enough for a teen novel, although not all of them were as fleshed out as I would like.
I liked the 80s references and the sarcasm of Arkle. The gore was a little much at times but I know several teenage boys I can recommend it to who would love it.

A quiet island, a horror story and an 80s soundtrack based around a group of teens makes for a dark YA story that may give you nightmares. Or perhaps flashbacks to your own childhood.
September Hope and his friends stepped away from the blood brother oath and put prize possessions in to a box with mystical rules in the woods in the hope of binding them together, but like the 80s perm they eventually fell out. Fast forward several years to broken rules, broken friendships and teenage angst.
This book is funny and dark, a great mix that make for a good book. The musical references feel redundant, however if they were a playlist that went along with the book that'd be better and would make for a great atmosphere.
The characters are funny and could easily be your own friends. The jock, the brain, the bad boy, etc they are the 80s stereotypes, but they are familiar. My only issues with the characters were keeping them straight in my mind, they seem to blend together as does their dialogue.
There are a few additional arcs to the story such as romance and a comet, but these feel like later addictions rather than actual story arcs. The actual story has a lot of elements that push it along. Zombies, dark crows and evil dolls - its enough to have you checking the closet and sleeping with the light on.
Overall this is a fantastically dark YA that will keep your reading through the short snappy chapters. Grab this book for a single sitting or a weekend of darkness, but don't read expect to sleep too well afterwards.

Never come to the box alone
Never open it after dark
Never take back your sacrifice

These are the rules. They must never, ever be broken.

This book was advertised for fans of IT, Stranger Things and Stand by Me. With the main characters being kids/teens in the 80s, a very creepy plot and themes of the strength of friendship, it's not hard to see why!

The novel takes place on an unnamed Scottish Island (based on the Isle of Arran as confirmed by the author in the Acknowledgements section of the book). This gives the setting a somewhat "small town" vibe cut off from the rest of the world. The 5 main characters meet and bond one Summer when their usual friends are away. They discover a mysterious box in the woods and decide to each make a sacrifice by putting something important to them into the box. The Summer comes to an end and the friends drift apart going back into their previous friendship groups...

4 years later bad things begin to happen to the kids...a rule has been broken...The only way to fix it is by coming back together and rebuilding their bond to face the evils of the box together!

Although this book is very much written in a "Young Adult" style. It is not a childish book! It is extremely dark and I would definitely put it into the genre of "Horror". There is a lot of gore and descriptive deaths of both people and animals which might not be some people's cup of tea. Honestly though, you can't expect a book to be marketed for fans of Stephen King without it being pretty dark! The plot itself is pretty King-esque generally, not only with the kids meeting and bonding in the woods over a summer (IT, The Body) but also dead zombie animals (Pet Sematary), Evil kids toys (The Monkey) etc. Although the plot had a lot of similarities to King, the writing style was completely different so I don't feel like there was too much "copying" involved.

Throughout the darkness of the plot in all its visceral grimness there is also humour and light and the power of friendship which balances the plot nicely. I found the writing itself to be thoroughly smooth and enjoyable with some really beautiful prose at some points.

The characters are enjoyable and likeable in their own way, although it would have been nice to learn more about the characters other than Sep to really get to understand and love them.

The ending leaves quite a few unanswered questions which is a shame and a bit of a downpoint to an otherwise very enjoyable book.

Overall, I zoomed through this book and it left me wanting more. The writing was excellent and with a little more development of the characters and plot this book has some really great potential.

Thank you very much to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review

The blurb for this book lured me in; the story it told had me hooked from the start.

Tagged as reminiscent of Stand By Me, and Stranger Things will surely be enough to ensure a large readership. Perhaps that's a bit of a wide catch all, as the book is set in the 80's, and centres around a group of teenagers as they struggle with the supernatural. That's irrelevant though - the story is fantastic, and fans of those titles should love this.

The only part I found annoying in this was the sections set in 1941 were severely lacking in spaces. I'm not sure if this was intentional, or an editing error - whichever it is, it needs putting right. It made those sections really hard to read.

What a page turner. Set very much in the concept of IT and Stand by Me by Stephen King this creepy little novel kept me awake at night reading until the early hours with just “Barnaby” for companionship! Loved it. The characters were well drawn and realistic. Highly recommended for horror fans..

One summer 70's evening, five boys discover a box in the woods. To cement their friendship, the friends decide to make sacrifices to the box by giving up something meaningful to place inside, with the threat that if one of them opens the box, terrible things will happen.
1982, and the friends have drifted apart. Until terrible, wicked things start to happen. Someone has broken the pact and opened the box.

On ready the blurb for this, I immediately drew comparisons with IT, The Goonies and Stand By Me which unfortunately does not help the novel. There's nothing new here, except a large portion of animal cruelty. I believe the novel is aimed at young adults and children - yet I found some of these violent scenes quite graphic in nature, and uncomfortable to read about. They didn't seem to fit with the target audience at all.

The characters, when comparing to these classic 80's films and novels, are also rather underdeveloped. We never spent enough time with one character (with the possible exception of Sep) to really understand their nature and get to know them. It's also hard to understand how any of these boys were even friends. There's no emotional connection between them at all except for their link to the box. This is proven by the fact that they've drifted apart by the time 1982 comes around.

The plot also suffers, as the author tries to pull the reader in several directions at once, not allowing you to concentrate on one plot development at a time. This makes the story convoluted and confusing at times as I was constantly trying to remember what everyone was doing at any given time. There was too much going on at once.

Disappointing.

For some reason I was expecting something mysterious yet light and fun. Guess what .. I was wrong. Oh how wrong I was.

In The Sacrifice Box we meet a group of 5 friends. Sep, Lamb, Arkle, Hadley and Mack. During one very sunny and fun summer holiday the kids find a box in the woods. In remembrance of the great time they had, they decide to put one personal item each into the box. A sacrifice for their friendship, you could say.
But four years later they sacrifices come back to haunt them.

My first mistake was to expect something light. My second was to start reading this book at 10 in the evening. I struggled a bit at the beginning to get into the book and characters but soon found myself super invested in Sep and his life. The story is very well told and creates an amazing and creepy atmosphere.

I did not enjoy this much. The characters are very flat and not that likeable. I did read it and can see some people would enjoy this. I don’t think I’d buy anything else by the author.

Fantastic read! I can feel the stranger things link there, and Ive only watched the first 5 episodes of that haha.. spooky and twisted, keeping you gripped and wanting more.

While in the forest, five friends come across a stone box and decide to leave a sacrifice in it, something that's special to them. When they made the sacrifice they made a pact that they would never return alone or at night.
Four years later strange things start happening and not in a good way. One of them must have broken that promise and returned to the box, but who was it? They find they are not the first children to have made a sacrifice in the box. Will any of them survive what the box has in stall for them?
There is plenty of gore in this book but for me it was a bit far fetched. Also when the story took you back in time I couldn't read the chapters as all the words were joined together, only the odd sentence readable, which spoiled it. For me it was a very disappointing read
I received a copy of this book via NetGalley, this is my honest and unbiased review

I enjoyed this book. The story and characters did remind me of a 1980s Stephen King novel, but that isn't a bad thing in my eyes. Overall I would recommend this book to horror story fans.

The ’80s ‘rites of passage’ trope has become a very popular angle to rework in recent years – the familiar themes of Stand by Me and the Goonies have been revisited in the likes of Stranger Things and IT, and The Sacrifice Box sits quite firmly in this bracket. 5 young friends, Sep, Lamb, Hadley, Mack and Arkle find themselves taking part in a sacrifice of sorts – each of them choosing something meaningful (to them) that should go into the strange box they’ve unearthed in the forest. The box is sealed, the pact is made. The rules of the Sacrifice Box are clear: Don’t go back to it at night, don’t go back to it alone, and don’t ever remove your sacrifice.

Fast forward a few years, and we learn from September (Sep) that the group have moved on and don’t have much contact with each other, except for seeing each other at school. Sep is lonely, and constantly worried about his Mum, a police officer who was battling cancer when he made his sacrifice to the box and has since recovered. Sep is even bullied by some of his former friends, who call him ‘Septic’. The group has all but forgotten about their pact, and the box, until one day, horrible things start to happen that can mean only one thing – someone has broken the pact and opened the box…

There were a few odd things about this book – the focus seemed to move around a lot, and I felt at times I was trying to follow a couple of stories, all of which were quite depressing. The box had obviously been opened and filled before, in a different age, or ages. No longer had I worked out what was going on in one timeframe, I was in another. Geographically, I wasn’t sure where it was supposed to be set, it seemed initially like it was an Island area in the US…but from the descriptions it sounded more like one of the islands off the British Isles – perhaps it is meant to be somewhere that could be anywhere, but it doesn’t really achieve that. That’s not particularly important though, more an observation.

I did like the relationship between the group, it rings true that those friends you have when you are really little are often not your friends throughout the rest of your life. Some you lose contact with and find again, sometimes more than once. Some, you just grow out of. There’s also a role for everyone in the group from the leader, down to the clown. I felt there was a lot of realism in the teenage feelings and frustrations – Sep never able to let go of the worry that his Mum is going to fall ill again and leave him alone. Every time she misses a meal or sleeps in late, the anxiety eats at him again. The relationship between Sep and his friend/employer Mario was really sweet & it was nice to know that Sep had someone looking out for him, even though I’m not sure he quite realised it at the time.

Aimed at teen and young adult readers, this is actually a quite scary novel – I found some of the gory descriptions quite nasty. There is a lot of death, and fairly explicit descriptions of those deaths – particularly that of animals, which could be upsetting to some, especially more sensitive kids but I can also imagine younger fans of horror and the paranormal lapping it up.

With thanks to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Hmmm. Clearly aimed at a young readership, nevertheless I accepted the invitation to read The Sacrifice Box enticed by the considerable hype about the book. First off, for me, there is some ambiguity about the location. Definitely on an island, New York City is mentioned but I was puzzled by references where price is mentioned in Pounds Sterling - £1.70 for example. Martin Stewart is a native of Glasgow, Scotland; why would he set his story in the USA?

Sep, Arkle, Mack, Lamb and Hadley. Five youngsters on their own rite of passage. Doing what young folk do, one long, hot summer when they stumble across a stone box hidden in the forest and for some reason they decide to make a sacrifice to the box, something pertinent to each of them, that should stay in the box forever, like an old, stuffed teddy-bear:

They make a pact:

never return to the box at night;
never visit it alone;
never take back their offerings.

Four years later their ‘friendship’ has drifted, they have pretty much forgotten about the box, until…. someone has broken the pact… Horrifying events start to occur, their sacrifices come back to haunt them with terrifying consequences. Perhaps they weren’t the first children to come across the box…

SPOILER ALERT

There are moments of humour particularly with Arkle’s dialogue. But… I struggled to persevere with a plot that contains so much violence to animals. Zombie animals for goodness sake? Much of this I found most distasteful. Maybe I am too sensitive, but considering the book’s target audience, I don’t think so.

2.5 stars from me.

I tried, really tried to finish this book but I had to give up. Life is too short.
I did not read the horror that others have found. It was more Toy Story 2 1/2 with the wrong batteries.

Having recently watched Stranger Things I cannot but compare the Netflix Series and the Sacrifice Box. Set in the 1970's a bunch of young friends spent the summertime together on a wooded island not far from New York City. It seems they were thrown together by pure chance, but who knows? Whilst playing in the the woods two of them find an odd box and convinced by Sep they all decide to offer sacrifices to the box. Years later, having gone their separate ways, the box is found and awful things begin to happen that brings them back together in fear. I liked the storyline and appeal of the horror factor but I'm afraid it didn't live up to my expectations. I found myself skipping pages and getting quite frustrated with the narrative.

This book was a really nice surprise and so on the current trend of eighties revival stories.

If you like Stranger Things, Goonies, E.T or Stand By Me this book is really for you, starting in the beginning of the 80's around 1982 five kids spend their summer together at the end of the summer they find a box, which they sacrifice an item each to celebrate there friendship and how important it is to them!!

There are rules with a sacrifice box, do not go back to it at night, do not go by yourselves and Do Not remove your sacrifices!!!

Now in 1986, the five friends no longer speak to each other they don't even acknowledge each other, but things start to happen which means the kids need to speak to each other!!

There is also things going with a group of adults, did they use the sacrifice box as well???

This is a great story with a really interesting plot, well written, with a coming of age story and how life moves on.

Well paced with a great mix of characters that will suit young and old readers.

"The Sacrifice Box" is set in the late 1970s with a group of friends on an island near New York City hanging out, little do they know this is their last period together before they drift apart. Sep, Arkle, Lamb, Hadley and Mack uncover a mysterious box in the woods. Driven by a waking dream experienced by Sep, they decide to make sacrifices to the box to seal their friendship. Straight away you think of Stephen King reference points... The novel then jumps a few years to 1982 and the teenagers do not even acknowledge each other at school any more and all have their own problems. Of course around this point the box is tinkered with and the old gang hangout again, eventually.... But who opened the box and where will the mystery lead?

Although it had some intriguing ideas I found the continual reference points to the early 1980s tiring, chopper bikes, walkmans and so on. The teenage voices were believable enough, but something about the book just never got going and I don't think the publisher trying to reference it with Stranger Things will do it any favours and many will find it pretty dull. I struggled to finish it.

One summer, 5 friends "sacrifice" things that mean something to them in a box they find in the woods with 3 rules they have to follow:

1. Don't return to the box after dark
2. Don't visit the box alone
3. Don't take back their sacrifices

Four years later and they have drifted apart and someone has opened the box!!

A cross between IT, Stand by Me and Stranger Things.........I really liked it and read in 2 sittings.

Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher, Netgalley and the author for a ARC of this book.

Characters
I love all of the characters; each one was a unique and definable identity within the group. Something that must be hard to achieve when you have such a large ensemble.
Sep is my favourite; he is relatable and the primary focus of the story despite its third person narrative. His development and sacrifices are monumental to the plot and endears him to me just as a young Wil Wheaton once did in Stand By Me.

Arckle reminds me of Corey Feldmen in pretty much every filmic incarnation he’s had. I love the humour, and cursing, he brings to the group.
Okay, so I’m making reference to Stand By Me, but it’s so much more than that. The group represent the best of all teen ensemble movies; the Goonies, The ‘Burbs, IT and the modern day equivalent, Stranger Things. If it ain’t broke, why fix it, right? Except Stewart does fix it; we have a much more gender equal group and, not only that, they are characterised by their stereotypes. Both Hadley and Lamb are welcome editions that are not prom queens or cheerleaders.

Plot
A class horror plot, perfect for a night in when the air is crisp. With the supernatural element to set up the main part of the plot, you will feel a very creepy vibe from the very start.
The exploration of school friendships and how people drift is a refreshing change to many school based novels.
The action speeds to a crescendo in time for the final act of the book; well written and engaging. The whole book is resolved neatly and quite beautifully; the group going their separate ways while being closer than ever.

Writing
While the writing is engaging, I found the lack of establishing a location a little distracting. You see, in part it reads like a charming, sleepy, American town. However, there are also nods to British culture. It’s described as an island of the mainland, so I considered Scotland, Isle of Man and other coastal areas, but nothing really fit.
I even paused to google the named location in the book, but I wasn’t successful in confirming a location. It’s not something destructive to the plot and I once I reconciled myself with the idea that I was free to establish it as a perfect blend of UK and US I really quite enjoyed the location. (Turns out, all you really need to do is find the author on Twitter… that might give you a good indication it’s set on a island off the coast of Scotland. I’m so reading this book again come Halloween so I can read it as it was, i’m sure intended, with the characters having beautiful Scottish accents)
The use of third person was a strange novelty for me. I’ve been finding that most YA books lean towards first person narration. I don’t remember growing up there being so much first person, or a certainly a lack of third, but here I am having to get used to a form of writing that I was once comfortable with.
Obviously, this makes the writer a little omniscient; and that, I really like. It gave Stewart the freedom to travel in time and expand beyond Sep’s point of view.