A book that I was very hesitant to start, that kind of book that I always thought "I'm either going to love it or I'm going to hate it." I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would! An original concept with perfect vibes, an engaging story with amazing writing. Characters that completely stood out to me and an ending that left me dying for a sequel!

I really enjoyed this book! It was such a quick read, the characters were great, and I have so many questions that I’ll definitely be picking up book 2!!

I’ve never read Susan Dennard before but I know the Truthwitch books are popular and the cover of The Luminaries seduced me so I thought I’d give it a go. I’ll be real honest, if I didn’t receive a review copy, I would have DNF-ed this book, but I can’t give my opinion until I’ve given it a chance. That said my frustrations only grew as the book went on.

My biggest issue with this book is the main character, Winnie, she’s just, at least for me, incredibly unlikeable. I get that she is walking around with a lot of anger and resentment in her, but she is not the only person who has a sh*tty life in this book, in fact other people have literally had loved ones die and they don’t wield it as an excuse. Winnie’s father betrayed Hemlock Falls and in turn her whole family, after he left, have been ostracised and Winnie’s friend group of Erica and Jay have also gone their own ways. You’d get she’s not going to be happy. BUT her Mum (who also had all this stuff happen to her) is a sweetheart and she’s not particularly nice to her, every time she complained about the new glasses her Mum was so proud of (that she in turn stopped wearing), I liked her even less. She has 2 girls who go out of their way to make her feel welcomed and wanted and she basically just tolerates them for most of the book. And then there’s Jay. We’ve all had friendships that have run dry, or been dumped by a friend and it sucks. But the moment she needs help; training, a lift, hell at one point he even takes off his hoody so she can use it to clean her glasses (!!), he gives it to her. And she’s horrible to him. She makes it clear she wants nothing to do with him, coldly tells his sister (and confirms it to him) that they are not friends, has a total victim complex going on, but continuously goes to Jay, taking his efforts and time with little or no gratitude, before wailing on him yet again. She snatches off him, snaps at him, glares at him, she rejects (or makes him beg) lifts from him to stop her getting wet and when he’s trying to train her or give her tips so she doesn’t die, she doesn’t even show she cares. When he points out that he’s had stuff going on, when she can visibly (and repeatedly!!) notice that he is looking tired, still all Winnie can think about is herself and storms off. She goes from moping that the whole of Hemlock Falls has looked down on her to referring to Jay as a “deadbeat”. But because she’s a teenage girl she starts to warm to Jay when she notices how muscular his thighs are now … sigh. It’s not even that I didn’t care if she lived, I kinda wanted her not to. I couldn’t root for her. She’s entitled, thinking people owe her, because she’s entitled she doesn’t appreciate what she gets, and she can only think of her own suffering. I get she’s 16 - but then also let’s not be all “I can’t believe the adults aren’t listening to her!!” when she’s trying to tell them about a new monster when she’s been acting such a child throughout out the book. Don’t even start me on the whole ‘I’ve had no training but I’m going to become a hunter’ impulsive stupidity.

The impending romance between Winnie and Jay is not something I am looking forward to for the above reasons. It’s a little cliche. He’s the moody musician with muscles and looks but no awareness. She’s the awkward glasses wearing book worm but that one time she wore a dress (borrowed of course as the cliche goes) and a bit of makeup, she is the only person he can look at in the crowd.

The last 15% of the book picks up in terms of plot and monsters and I even started to like Winnie in those last pages, but the next instalment would need a lot of self reflection and growing up. I will give the book credit for this last section which showed the potential this book had.

The writing is repetitive - Winnie’s anxious tendency to click her teeth and play with her jacket zip are over killed, as is even mention of the leather jacket Winnie wears, you very quickly get it and don’t need the constant reminders. Likewise you will learn A LOT that Jay has grey eyes, messy hair and looks tired, always tired.
Winnie has near memorised the compendium , a book of all the nightmares, and I realise this is likely part of her character, this book is cluttered with recited extracts. As Winnie walks through the forest you get italic paragraph after another info dumping about the vampires, banshees etc in a way that feels like it takes you out of the story. I would rather have detailed descriptions and writing that makes me know something or ‘see’ it than have resorted to this to get everything across.
And when there is world building, it’s either (or both) vague and overly complicated. The Diana’s are only briefly mentioned and yet Winnie’s father’s involvement with them is constantly referred to, a betrayal so terrible due to how awful they are that her entire family has been punished for it. But you don’t really get it because you don’t get the Diana’s. The system of the family’s; Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays etc, the different family sayings, the different creatures, the trials, the whole closed off society of Hemlock Falls, the “halfers”, the “nons”… it’s all interesting enough, or it could be, but it’s just thrown at you and never really delved into enough for substance. Why do these nightmares even exist? Is this exclusive to Hemlock Falls? If not, why is it so guarded? Why are literally children dealing with disposing of bodies and then risking their lives (with willing parents) at the age of 16?? They don’t get paid so why are they choosing this??
In addition to the repetition and the vague world building, there are also two twists that are painfully obvious, one being the identity of a Diana and, so obvious they basically have an arrow pointing at them, the identity of the werewolf, the clues are in no way subtle.

This book just wasn’t for me and I feel like there’s no point reading the next instalment because this one was too obvious, I feel I already know what’s going to happen. Thank you NetGalley though for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

At face level, this is a book with various monsters so it’s fun for that and does have its moments, if you just don’t look into it too much.

My first five star review of 2023. Pacey, mysterious and action packed. You won’t see me in a dark forest anytime soon as I am as untrained as they come 😱

Winnie Wednesday lives in Hemlock Falls, but don’t try to look it up, you won’t find it anywhere, and with good reason; the forest conceals nightmares.

The town is protected by the Luminaries, an ancient order than Winnie desperately wants to join and she’s willing to die trying to get in.

This is book number one in The Luminaries series and there’s at least going to be a sequel so I get the whole point of writing a series is to spread the story out; it allows the author to go into a lot of detail in each book.
My bug bear is that this book has a lot of introductory world building (which is essential!) but then a lot of suspense with not much pay off, I was expecting a reveal at the end of this book so I’m hoping that will happen early on in book two!

Onto the actual content, I really liked the premise of these badass monster hunters, and I loved the extracts from the nightmare compendium interspersed throughout the book. I did find some of the text repetitive especially when it came to Winnie’s mannerisms; there was a lot of mention about her clicking teeth and her pushing her glasses up which I understand is there to help build the image of Winnie in our heads, but it just didn’t seem necessary to repeat it as often as it was.

As for the characters, I’m expecting book two to give more backstory to a fair few, I want to read about Emma and Bretta, Darian and Andrew, and also the elusive Dianas.

Overall, not a premise I’ve read before so it made for a refreshing read.

Such a fast paced read and I loved being dragged into Winnies life. I haven't read much paranormal fantasy before but this made me so intrigued to read more of this genre and of Dennards writing! Highly recommend.

This book is a really fun, dark paranormal YA with all of the best things about early 2000s YA paranormal fantasy books. I really enjoyed the atmospheric descriptions and mysterious characters (even if they do all have surnames based on days of the week). I can’t wait to find out what happens in book 2!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

To be honest, this is one of those books where I only got engaged at the very end. It has a beautiful cover but the contents disappointed me a bit. There was some telling-not-showing that still didn't clarify much in the story and the stakes didn't feel high enough. It's very... basic? in its construction of characters, romance, magic, and whatnot. Not that that's always a bad thing, but it didn't spring to life for me.
Younger teenage readers might still find this very fun, especially if they haven't already read a dozen books with similar premises (which is my own fault, not the author's).

I really enjoyed the first in this new series by Susan Dennard (although I would also like more Witchlands please?) about a spooky town in mid-Western America where a spirit slumbers beneath a wood, and manifests their dreams in the form of nightmares and spooky beings. Winnie, our protagonist, is about to take the trials to become a full-fledged Hunter, despite her family being outcasts for the past four years. I thought this was Dennard on top form, even if the book did originally start as a choose-your-own adventure on a twitter thread. It's a nuanced and detailed story, with plenty of nods to the original thread and its inspirations, My one complaint, though, was that the narrative consistently referred to the compound bow as having bolts. This is actually the opposite of my usual complaint, which is that crossbow ammo is often referred to as arrows (it's bolts or quarrels), Still though, this came up so frequently that it really irritated me, particularly because the rest of the detail was spot on with the release aid, etc. I took a whole star off for it.

I’m a fantasy lover so was very excited to read this. I loved the world, the story, Winnie was a great character and the slow build romance with Jay was very well done, usually I love a full on romance in my fantasy but this was done really well.

It took me a lot longer to get through than I liked, but that was definitely a ME problem as I was in a reading slump but I’m very intrigued for the rest of the series!

Fantastic book. Susan Dennard has once again written a book that fans will love. I can't wait to see where the series goes from here.

I went into the Luminaries with high expectations, since I’ve heard great things about Dennard’s other series (The Witchlands). The Luminaries didn’t quite live up to my expectations, but I think it is a solid first instalment for a YA fantasy series.

The premise of this book was fascinating and the world building was a particular strong point. I especially enjoyed the lush and evocative description of the forest (which ended up being a central aspect of the narrative).

I found the main character, Winnie a bit underdeveloped and I wished that her personal backstory was more fleshed out. Throughout the book, I kept questioning why she and her family felt so ostracised and outcasted. I’m hoping that we will see more of Winnie’s character development in the sequels.

Overall, the book was medium paced and relatively easy to get through. The plot revolved around three big trials (as stated in the synopsis) but nothing else really happened.

I would recommend this series for those who enjoy adventurous fantasy stories. I could see middle grade readers enjoying this series as well.

The Luminaries rides on nostalgia, familiar tropes, especially with the hint of romance which follows a very well-trodden path, shady organisations, shadowy forests, dark creatures, and somehow I'm here for it!

I really enjoyed reading this, a new guilty pleasure, think about it too much, and it' can be easily dismantled, but I still gobbled it up, it's like a tribute to Hunger Games, meets L J Smith, meets Buffy, and I didn't care how familiar and shallow it all was, I just really liked reading it, it brought me back to the books I read as a young teen.

The Luminaries are an organisation that protects the unaware rest of the world from monsters that have been made manifest from a spirit's nightmares.

The world building will hopefully be a bit more in-depth in upcoming books, there's a lot that's still hazy, but since the main character is literally an outcast, and not privy to the secrets of why the world and the institutions they have been outcast from are the way they are, maybe the veil over the details is deliberate at this stage.

There's a lot still unknown, who are the Dianas? Why are they called Dianas? What are the main points of conflict? Who decided on the trials and why? What are the spirits? Why do their nightmares become real? It's unclear if the unknowns are deliberate and will be answered later, or if the world is just a gloss for an entertaining, if shallow, YA story.

I haven't read any of Susan Dennard's earlier work, but I will look out for it now, because I think in terms of plot, and pace, she writes an engaging story.

The other note I have is that the ending felt pretty abrupt, there is a hook for the next book, a rather sudden cliffhanger, but again, for me, it's still enough to bait me and I'll be looking out for the next book.

I have read books by this author before. As someone who needs a good world building, I loved this. The writing was very good and the character stories were interesting.

Really liked this book. Winnie just tries so hard to make things right for her family and throws herself headlong into dangerous situations which she only thinks about later. Her story is very interesting and exciting.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free ARC in exchange for a review.

I think Wednesday gave me a complex about the word outcasts being used like it's a concrete class of people. I hate it. Say traitors or something with an actual meaning!!!

The book is in present tense as well, which I don't love. Also, the people on the Council totally suck.

I had real trouble here. If you don't have my Wednesday issues, you will probably enjoy this more than me.

I did not know what I needed to expect from this story, nonetheless I did enjoy it.
It was slow most of the book, I did sometimes think that Winnie was a bit annoying, a bit whiney.
The use of creatures that we know, tweaking them a bit and turning them into nightmares was such a good idea. I loved the pages out of the Nightmare Compendium.
So excited for the 2nd book!

The Luminaries by Susan Dennard

3 STARS

I hadn't read any other of Dennard's work so had nothing to compare this to, other than other fantasies.

A solid enough book - you can never go too wrong with a creepy wood - but something felt lacking. Whether it's because it felt like familiar, well-trodden ground or due to the characters lack of originality, I can't tell.

Worth a read but unsure if I'd read a sequel.

⭐⭐⭐.5 -- Love the cover on this book!

Luminaries by Susan Dennard is a captivating contemporary YA fantasy that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. The story takes place in Hemlock Falls, a town that harbers many secrets, and follows Winnie Wednesday, a young girl who dreams of joining the Luminaries, an ancient order that protects her town from terrifying creatures that emerge from the forest every night.

Dennard skillfully weaves together themes of fear, family secrets, friendship, and courage to create a truly compelling narrative. As Winnie trains for the deadly Luminary hunter trials with the help of her ex-best friend Jay Friday, readers are drawn into a world filled with danger and darkness. Winnie is a strong and determined protagonist who fights to prove herself worthy of becoming a Luminary, and Jay is an equally compelling character with secrets of his own.

Overall, Luminaries was an enjoyable read that will appeal to fans of YA fantasy novels.

**ARC Via NetGalley**

For me 3.5/5 stars.
It was an interesting book. The world development is amazing, and the drawings of the monsters and their descriptions helped me enormously to follow the story. I did get a bit confused with the characters, but they are well developed and the story has intrigue to make you want to keep reading.
My only downsides might be the fight scenes and a bit of the book's pacing.
Recommended for people who like mythology and monsters.