The Girls from Hush Cabin by Marie Hoy-Kenny
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars rounded up**
The moment I heard about this YA Thriller involving a sleepaway camp and featuring a gorgeously ominous cover, I knew that I needed to read it ASAP.
A bonus for me was that The Girls from Hush Cabin is a debut for Marie Hoy-Kenny and we all know, I love checking out author debuts. It’s such an exciting moment!
In this story we meet a group of four teens, Holly, Zoe, Denise and Calista, who have been friends since they used to bunk together at Camp Bellwood Lake. Unfortunately, after the closure of the camp, the girls drifted apart a bit.
They’re brought together again unexpectedly after the tragic death of their beloved counselor, Violet. They all want to attend her services to pay their respects, so they decide it would be best to go together.
Since Zoe lives in the same town that Violet did, the other girls travel to Zoe’s to stay for the duration of events.
The girls have definitely changed over the years, but if there is one thing they can agree on it’s that Violet’s death is suspicious as heck.
They believe she could have been murdered and that her death could be related to the incident that caused the closing of the camp. The thing is, each one of the girls is keeping her own secrets about that particular summer and may know more about the incident than they’re letting on.
If someone was willing to kill Violet over it, could they all be in danger too?
The girls want to uncover the truth, whatever the risks. They feel like they owe it to Violet, even if it means exposing some hurtful truths of their own.
I had so much fun with this. I don’t care what anyone says, this is a dramatic, OTT page-turner. Hoy-Kenny delivered exactly what I wanted and expected.
I thought the story was well told. I liked the structure of it, starting with how we met each of the girls and then also, that we got all of their perspectives.
As mentioned, they each had their own secrets, memories and experiences with Violet and learning all that stuff helped to build out the substance of the story.
This is super dramatic. The girls make every scene a dramatic scene, but they’re teens who just lost a good friend. Only one of them had really ever experienced that kind of loss before, so this is a whole new experience for them.
I think for characters this age, it all made sense. Not only was there external drama, there was also a lot of drama just amongst the four girls.
Ultimately though, I liked how they worked together and ended up evolving through a lot of their disputes. Some of the things, I personally would have found hard to forgive, so good on them.
There were also some side characters bringing a lot of intrigue and dramatic flair as well. Violet’s Mom, Mrs. Williams, was a particular favorite of mine.
If you read this, you’ll easily understand why. All I could picture while reading her was Jennifer Coolidge, who I absolutely adore.
As this gets closer to the conclusion, things really amp up. This definitely went places I wasn’t expecting. My jaw dropped more than once; such a thrill ride.
Overall, I just think this is a fun time. It might not make my top 10 list, out of the 100s of books I read this year, but I still think it is a great freaking debut and I can’t wait to read more from this author.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Blackstone Publishing, for providing me with a copy to read and review.
I think Marie Hoy-Kenny is a great addition to the YA Thriller space. I’m looking forward to her next release!