Synopsis:

The only thing James and Johnny Golden have ever had is each other. For as long as she can remember, James’s deep connection with her twin brother, Johnny, has gone beyond intuition—she can feel what he feels. So, when Johnny is killed in a tragic accident, James knows before her phone even rings that her brother is gone and that she’s alone—truly alone—for the first time in her life. 

When James arrives in the rural town of Hawthorne, California to settle her brother’s affairs, she’s forced to rehash the ominous past she and Johnny shared and finally face Micah, the only person who knows about it. He’s also the only man she’s ever loved. 

But James soon discovers that the strange connection she had with Johnny isn’t quite gone, and the more she immerses herself into his world, the more questions she has about the brother she thought she knew. Johnny was keeping secrets, and he’s not the only one. What she uncovers will push her to unravel what happened in the days before Johnny’s death, but in the end, she’ll have to decide which truths should come to light, and which should stay buried forever.

Review:

I think I am officially an Adrienne Young fangirl (even though this is only the second of her books I have read). The combination of buckets of atmosphere, a mystery and a sprinkle of magic just hits all the right spots for me. I read Spells for Forgetting in one go, and once I started A Sea of Unspoken Things I found it very difficult to put it down.

In this book we follow James, a San Francisco artist who travels back to her tiny hometown after the death of her twin brother. We are told it was an accident, but she has a suspicion that it was much more than that and tries to uncover more information about what her brother’s life was like before he died.

Young is a master at filling her stories with so much atmosphere that it practically seeps off the pages. Her ability to describe a setting and make it feel so totally alive is fantastic. I could feel the forests of the story around me so vividly, I could smell the pines and hear the rustle of trees while I was reading.

I enjoyed James as a character. At first she didn’t seem too deep, but as the story progressed and layers were peeled away, we learned and she developed and I grew to love her. She did feel a fair bit younger than she was meant to be, however, but it didn’t feel too out of place for her personal story.

The plot and magical elements of this book weren’t as strong as in Spells for Forgetting, but I do think the exploration of grief and sibling bonds was done in such a wonderful way that it made up for that. The pacing is pretty slow at least for the first 60%, but the tension and unravelling of the mystery meant it didn’t feel too dragging, especially as James is frustrated at the lack of information too.

Overall, this is a gorgeously written, mysterious book. There is less magic than in Spells, so if that’s the thing you love most about her books then just be aware of it. I absolutely need to go back and read June Farrow now – I can’t believe it missed it!

Thank you so much to @netgalley & @quercusbooks for an e-arc of the book.