DARK AND SHALLOW LIES

Evil lurks in a tiny Louisiana town that has more than its fair share of supernatural power.

Seventeen-year-old Grey and her best friend, Elora, have always been “twin flames,” “lit from the same match,” sharing everything and uncannily alike. In their hometown of La Cachette, a bayou town of 106 known as the Psychic Capital of the World, people often have strange and potent abilities. Despite having vanished several months ago, Elora keeps appearing in Grey’s mind’s eye. These flashes are brief and dark, suggesting that Elora unsuccessfully ran for her life, and Grey’s grief makes the narration more sad than scary. The 10 young people known locally as the Summer Children, including eight other kids who were born between the equinoxes that same year, have already been through a lot; two of them, identical twins, were murdered when they were 4. At first, Grey suspects their killer of Elora’s murder as well, but in the process of digging up clues, she unravels a much more complex situation as well as a blue-eyed stranger who rivals her chain-smoking childhood crush for her sexual interest. La Cachette’s tragic mysteries are suitably intricate, if occasionally confusing, and though the plot drags somewhat in the middle, the hurricane-fueled finale wraps everything up nicely. The setting colors every event in the story with a splash of Southern gothic; it’s perhaps even more of a central character than either Grey or Elora. Main characters are presumably White.

Atmospheric.