The Luminaries: 1

Beautifully descriptive and immersive, this story will grip you and drag you through mystery, intrigue, and heart-pounding emotions that you never expected! I am fully invested in this magical story and can't wait for its resolution later this year! Superb, Susan!

“All around the world, the Luminaries live near fourteen sleeping spirits. Each night, when the spirits dream, their nightmares come to life. And each night, the Luminary hunters guard the world against those nightmares, one clan for every day of the week.”- The Luminaries’ by Susan Dennard.Hemlock Falls is different to other towns. It isn’t found on any map and there’s no phone signal. Worse though is that at night the forest outside town might just kill you….Creepy!The protagonist of this novel is Winifred (Winnie) Wednesday, who is approaching her 16th birthday. She wants nothing more than to join the Luminaries, an ancient order that protects Hemlock Falls from the monsters and nightmares that rise in the forest every night. There are groups of Luminaries throughout the world protecting humanity.However, four years ago Winnie’s father was exposed as a witch and a spy for the Dianas, the Luminaries’ ancient enemy. He ran off but Winnie and her family were left behind and have been shunned ever since. In order to prove herself loyal and restore her family’s good name, Winnie is planning to take the deadly Luminary hunter trials starting on her 16th birthday.She enlists the aid of the town’s resident bad boy and her former best friend, Jay Friday, to help her train. Together they discover a different kind of danger lurking in the woods, one that no one in Hemlock Falls is prepared for. No further details to avoid spoilers.I was drawn initially by the striking cover of this YA paranormal fantasy and its premise sounded quite promising. I combined reading with its unabridged audiobook edition, narrated by Caitlin Davies.However, I did feel that it read quite young. Perfect for teens in the age range of Winnie and her friends though less appealing to readers who have left sighing wistfully over whether a cute boy will ever notice them long in the past.I found the story itself engaging with some intriguing aspects. I was eager for more information about how these pockets of nightmare creatures came to be and the role of the Dianas. However, as ‘The Luminaries’ is the first in a series it could be that the author will reveal more in due course.With respect to its audiobook edition, Caitlin Davies has served as a narrator on close to 200 titles winning a number of awards. Her voice is quite light in tone, which worked well given the ages of Winnie and her friends. When adult characters, such as Winnie’s mum, had dialogue she slipped easily into a more mature sounding voice.Aside from that stunning cover by Micaela Alcaino, the book has a few illustrations by Kirby Rosanes depicting creatures from the Luminary compendium.Overall, I quite enjoyed ‘The Luminaries’ and was amused to read in the Acknowledgements that Susan Dennard had drawn on the hive mind of her fans (LumiNerds) using Twitter polls to determine aspects of the plot. It’s certainly an unusual technique.The novel ended fairly abruptly, though this paves the way for Book 2, ‘The Hunting Moon’, due to be published in November. I plan to read it.3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Got bored after 200 pages I think i would have loved it if I was maybe between 14 and 18 as a 45 year old it’s pretty boring

The Luminaries left me with such a book hangover! It was so great that for days after I finished, I kept going to pick it back up before remembering that I'd already got to the end. I am SO looking forward to book two.Winnie Wednesday's life dream is to join the Luminaries and spend her nights destroying nightmarish monsters. But Winnie and her family have been shunned as traitors ever since her father betrayed Hemlock Falls, which means no training, no support, and no easy access to the hunter trials. If she's going to pass the trials and become a Luminary, she'll have to contend with more than monsters - an even bigger challenge than she expects given the new monster stalking the forest that only she has seen. Can she fulfil her dream, redeem her family and convince everyone that she's not making up the most deadly monster Hemlock Falls has ever seen, all while fighting for her life?I've been a long-time subscriber to Dennard's newsletter for her brilliant writing advice, but this is actually the first novel of hers that I've read (a few of the others have been waiting very patiently in the tbr pile on my kindle...) I'm absolutely going to have to rectify that this year because I loved The Luminaries so much! It was packed full of brilliant world building, non-stop action, tension and really high stakes. It also had brilliant characters who were flawed and made mistakes, with plenty of secrets still left to uncover in the next book.My Netgalley file was corrupted and kept skipping pages but I was so invested in what I had read that I went and bought the ebook so that I could keep reading.

I love the idea of this book but it just doesn’t quite work.The story follows Winnie as she tries to reclaim her family’s lost status by becoming a Hunter, deal with the emotional trauma of her father’s absence and betrayal, and flirt with Jay, her ex close friend. And if you have read the blurb and my summary, then you have pretty much read the whole story! None of the plot threads raised get resolved, or explored fully – all of the obstacles are introduced and explained (a bit… I’m still not sure exactly what the deal is with the Dianas!). It feels almost like this is a very long prequel and first few chapters to a story that will actually follow in future books?I got irritated with Winnie’s constant teeth clicking and felt she was being pretty obtuse about some of the ‘mysteries’ she faced – I’m pretty sure I know what Jay and Erica are, even though the story doesn’t confirm it!In tone, the story feels like a middle grade or young teen book, especially with regards to the relationships and the parental vs. career path plot, but then some of the gory, gruesome content relating to monsters and deaths make the story feel too dark for the emotional age range.I really do think there is scope for this to be an amazing book with regards to the world and plot we are teased with, but the pacing, characters and overall tone of the story could do with some evening out for it to achieve its full potential.

I didn't think I'd like it. It does fit my usual fantasy criteria but for some reason, I wasn't excited and picked it up from a bookclub pick. My days, did I get it wrong. Everything about it was brilliant, the pace, the plot, the characters. I especially love the awkward teen romance trope that is just so much more realistic.I didn't think I'd love it as much as I do!

Holy Nightmares, this book was EPIC.I was looking for a good Spooktober read and remembered I got approved for a The Lumanaries ARC so of course it became my next read. It was delightfully spooky and interesting and wowza! I still have soooo many questions so I sure hope we're getting sequel and SOON.This was an action packed adventure that was over waaaay too soon. I need MORE MORE MORE. GIMME GIMME GIMME.Sooz always sucks me into her stories and she's done it once again. Her writing is just unlike anyone else's. Any another author would have me annoyed at the fact we know so little still about The Whisperer and The Wolf, but Sooz just makes me crave that next book.I would looove to see Jay and Winnie's friendship / relationship grow. I already love their connection and wish we'd seen just a tad more of it.I'm giving The Luminaries 4,5 stars because there's a few things that irk me too much to give it the full 5 stars but DAMN, this book was so cool. I could really feel how much love went into writing this book.So book two... Can we strike a deal, Sooz? GIMME GIMME GIMMEThis book was provided to me by the author and Netgalley.

Dieses Buch war ganz genau das, was ich lesen wollte und ich habs geliebt. Ich will sofort zurück zur ersten Seite blättern und es nochmal lesen.2019 habe ich Susans Choose Your Own Adventure Twitter Thread entdeckt und begeistert wochenlang in den Polls gevotet und Winnie in ihrem Abenteuer voran gebracht (& auch umgebraucht, upsi). Jetzt eine weitere Version ihrer Geschichte zu lesen, die genau das verkörpert, was ich an dem Twitter-Adventure schon geliebt habe und immer noch neue Dinge zu entdecken und neue Blickwinkel, war eine wahnsinnige Freude. Susan Dennard hat mir genau das geliefert was ich lesen wollte und noch eins drauf gesetzt.Ich liebe die spooky vibes, die Nightmares, die Hunter (wenn auch nicht alle) und ganz besonders alle Szenen im Wald. Winnies Geschichte ist irgendwie cozy und auch voller Nervenkitzel und perfekt für den Herbst (auch, wenn das Buch im Frühling spielt).Ich finde, es ist noch Luft nach oben. Von Susans Witchlands-Büchern weiß ich, wie fantastisch sie Plotten und Welten bauen kann und ich hoffe stark, dass das in Luminaries 2 & 3 noch folgen wird. Allerdings habe ich mir an keiner Stelle des Buches gedacht "hier noch ein bisschen mehr, bitte", einfach weil der Hauptaugenmerk auf Winnies emotionaler Entwicklung liegt und zusätzlich Details in meinen Augen einfach zu überwältigend gewesen wären. Es herrscht eine schöne Balance zwischen Action und heartfelt Moments und Stress und Aufatmen, allgemein fand ich das Tempo sehr angenehm. Und Winnie hatte einfach keinen brainspace für noch mehr Infos, die sie mit sich rumschleppen muss, girl was in survival mode the whole book.Ich bin sehr gespannt auf Band 2, freue mich sehr die angedeuteten Verstrickungen aufgedröselt zu sehen und wie Winnie und #UghJay darauf reagieren werden und noch mehr zu der Welt zu lernen. Ein ziemlich guter erster Band, meiner Meinung nach.

I was completely sure I was going to love this book because it is a Susan Dennard book and she is one of my auto-buy authors for quite a few reasons.But this is the perfectly creepy and dark but hopeful, fun and escapist fiction that I knew I needed & wanted after taking part of the 2019 Sooz-your-own-adventure on Twitter! Sooz never disappoints me and once again she's absolutely hit the spot with this story!It's creepy, a little angsty, with quite a lot more to dig into in the next books, about the forest, the nightmares, monsters or not, and all the secrets unknown between Luminaries and Dianas!Devoured this in a day, enjoyed every page of it and I cannot wait to get book 2, as soon as possible!!

Great read from start to finish

“That’s why we’re called the Luminaries, Winnie: we are lanterns the forest can never snuff out.”✨✨The Luminaries focuses on Winnie as she fights to regain her place amongst the hunters of Hemlock Falls following her family being shunned due to her father’s betrayal.✨✨I loved the idea of The Luminaries. The premise of hunters going into a forest every night to eliminate monsters plaguing the forest sounds so amazing as well as the trials the potential hunters have to go through. However, the story itself felt a little flat up until the final moments. I enjoyed the trials themselves and thought they were hr most interesting element of the book. Although, I felt like the plot needed to be teased out more between the big baddie in the forest and the big reveal in the final pages. I’m hoping it was intentionally vague to help set up the next book in the series. I did enjoy it enough to read the next one in the series and see where Dennard goes with the characters.