Book Review | Our Crooked Hearts #20booksofsummer22

Book five of my summer reading challenge and one that I didn’t want to put down.

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Our Crooked Hearts
Melissa Albert

Ivy’s summer kicks off with a series of disturbing events. As unnatural offerings appear on her doorstep, she’s haunted by fragmented memories from her childhood, suggesting there’s more to her mother, Dana, than meets the eye.

Dana’s tale starts the year she turns sixteen, when she embarks on a major fling with the supernatural. Too late she realizes that the powers she’s playing with are also playing with her.

Years after it began, Ivy and Dana’s shared story will come down to a reckoning between a mother, a daughter and the dark forces they never should have messed with.

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I just knew going into this book that it was going to be atmospheric and haunting, with a story that I would be completely sucked into, and I wasn’t disappointed. Our Crooked Hearts has all the right ingredients for a brilliant urban fantasy, creepy old buildings, magic, lots of secrets, and someone who is out for revenge, but still manages to be very unique and unexpected.

The story plays out mostly over two timelines current day from Ivy’s perspective and ‘back then’ from her mother Dana’s perspective when she was a teenager. I loved how the story unravelled, how we slowly see the secrets that Dana has been keeping from Ivy and the reasons for them.

The relationship between Dana and Ivy is at the heart of this book and it was complex and at times fraught which made for some great tension in the story. What I loved the most though was seeing how their relationship evolves as they learn more about each other and how the dynamic seems to be constantly shifting between them, it’s really well written.

The magic in this story is amazing, I loved the idea of magic that is for you and the consequences of using magic that isn’t, and how unpredictable it can be. We are introduced to it slowly and this really helps with building the suspense, especially as the vengeful forces start to come into play and unexplained things start to happen, because I never knew how the characters would react and it gave me that perfect edge of my seat feeling.

I feel like there is so much I want to gush about but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone because it’s all so cleverly woven together that I feel like mentioning anything more specific will give too much away. What I will say is that if you like a dark and atmospheric read with magic and tense relationships full of secrets then you will just love this.

Reviews of other books by Melissa Albert
The Hazel Wood