In Nightfall
In Nightfall
Suzanne Young
Delacorte Press, March 2023
Paperback, $12.99
ISBN 9780593487587
Suzanne Young is a prolific author of young adult fiction, so she knows the territory well. With In Nightfall she ventures into teen vampire fiction with confidence. There are plenty of pop culture references and the story has echoes of The Lost Boys, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight.
Set in a remote town on the Oregon coast, siblings Theo and Marco are spending the summer with their grandma. There they find, despite the rain, that Nightfall is actually a cool place but there’s some strange stuff going on. Both Marco and Theo have episodes of memory loss, hallucinations and hangovers that make no sense. Their grandma is very superstitious, insisting they get home before dark, giving them weird dolls for protection and issuing mysterious warnings.
The local kids of Nightfall seem unbelievably cool and good looking but Theo notices some truly strange behaviour: they have no fear, drive too fast, drink too much and their lives are an endless party. Theo befriends some other visitors to the town: podcasters Elijah and Felix who have been exploring Nightfall’s murky past – apparently there’s a history of missing people and some very strange traditions. Suddenly Theo is starting to make sense of grandma’s warnings. A smart, spooky read for fans of Juno Dawson and Aislinn O’Loughlin.
Lisa Doyle Redmond
