The Devouring Light by Kat Ellis

Harper Collins, 2025

ISBN: 9780063355248

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

Another entry in the growing field of horror/thrillers for the YA crowd, The Devouring Light does it right. It’s a good read for the young ‘uns, (this one would be about junior high to early high school level) but it’s also plenty of fun for adults. In other words, for parents that want books they could read and actually have fun TALKING about with their kids, this would be a good choice. It’s what you want– a good plot, quick pacing, and lightweight enough that it can work with the short attention spans of kids today.

Despite being an adult herself, author Ellis has a good grasp on how to write younger characters, as the book’s protagonists are ones that kids can easily relate to. Here, they are constantly relying on their phones (until they have little choice), concerned about their social media feeds, worrying about what to post next, etc. The book is about a group of five young wannabe rock stars (well, four, and one who actually is one) riding the tour bus to their next show. The bus gets waylaid and crashes, and the characters find themselves taking shelter in a house in a swamp called the Light, which is one of those urban legends that everyone has heard of, yet of course no one has any first hand experience with. The story is written in the present tense, which seems to be one that again, younger readers prefer (older grouches like me have a tougher time with that format). It does seem to work for the story, though.

So… they are stuck in the house, with no contact with the outside world, and weird things happen. Eventually the mystery of the house starts to unfold, complete with nice, straightforward plot devices that don’t need to rely on a gory mess: some creaking sounds, weird footprints appearing, creepy mannequins, and so forth. Nothing really new, but it’s stuff that still works well, so why try to reinvent the wheel? The story’s narrative is nicely intercut throughout, with chapters that consist of police interview transcripts and transcripts of recovered video footage that do a nice job of providing the backstory for the plot. Splitting the narrative into different formats will work well with today’s young readers, the variety keeps it from being uniform. Again, it’s about appealing to your target audience. There’s enough depth to the characters, and enough happening that the younger crowd should easily stay interested in this to the end, and it will work for adults too. The characters do occasionally demonstrate a lack of deductive reasoning that adult readers will consider foolish, but it doesn’t detract from the quality of the story. The ending is a nice wrap up, that ends with a good bang, and it is a rather clever way of stopping the house from devouring all the characters. Chances are, the majority of readers won’t guess it, and that’s what you want in a mystery.

Bottom line here: it’s good for all ages, starting with junior high school aged readers, and is certainly a good choice for parents and teachers trying to find some way to keep kids off their phones, even if it’s only a few short hours. Recommended.

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson