Eden’s town has an abandoned beach resort that is filled with ghosts and lore. Eden is aware of it, but more focused on dealing with her high school life. Her family went through a traumatic scandal a few years ago and Eden and her mom work hard to support their shattered life. Eden is offered a gig to help fellow high school student, Henry, to film the abandoned resort for a documentary he’s making about the tragedies and murders that occurred years ago. The same night they film, the seniors are having an overnight party in the abandoned buildings, but soon one of them is found dead, and Eden’s life spirals out of control.

Coming to shelves March 4th is the latest fast paced and thrilling novel from Chelsea Ichaso. And you don’t want to miss this one!

“This girl - this child - sprawled lifeless on the gravel was far from the first to die on this land. This child wouldn’t be the last.”

I absolutely loved this book! I spent an entire day devouring it and I’m still thinking about it days later. It’s just everything I love in a YA thriller; drama, murder, a bit of a love story, and fast paced writing. I’ll try and gush about this without spoilers so bare with me.

I HAVE to talk about the love story because I’m OBSESSED! Two of the characters in this book have a sort of ‘enemies to lovers’ type trope, but only one of them thinks of the other as an enemy, which was so much fun to read. And while it does hinge on a version of the “miscommunication trope”, which I don’t really enjoy, this one made sense for the story and was handled really well. When the two of them are interacting I was just absolutely thrilled and loved every moment of their dialogue.

This is also an incredibly funny story within a very dark one. Our main character Eden is such a sassy, fast thinking, sarcastic girl. There were so many moments I was laughing out loud at some of the comments she would make to people. And it I think it brought a breath of fresh air to a very dark and scary story that I really appreciated.

On the horror side, this story delivers. We have an abandoned, rotting beach resort with a creepy old mansion overlooking it all. The history of this land is filled with death and plague and curses. There’s multiple murders, some of which are quite gruesome, there’s potential ghosts stalking people, there’s revenge, and there’s very much “everyone is a suspect” vibes.

“But I’m going in if it’s the last thing I do. And let’s be honest, if the legend is true, it very well could be.”

It was a very satisfying story that delivers a shocking ending that I thoroughly enjoyed. I was walking around my apartment reading it (have to hit those 15K steps a day) and once I hit the final twist I immediately had to tell my roommate everything while yelling at her about it. Bless her for putting up with me.

Overall, I genuinely loved this book from start to finish. I’ve never read Ichaso’s books before but I’m now very motivated to read her entire catalogue. A massive thank you to Sourcebooks for sending me a copy of We Were Warned in exchange for an honest review. We Were Warned is on shelves March 4th and I highly recommend picking up a copy!

“Why anyone decided to rebuild on this patch of land after such tragedy remains a mystery. It seems clear that death and madness live here in the soil.”