Our Thoughts Precisely: Bumps in the Night by Amalie Howard

Title: Bumps in the Night

Series: n/a
Author: Amalie Howard
Source/Format: NetGalley; eARC
More Details: Fantasy; Middle Grade
Publisher/Publication Date: Delacorte Press; February 20, 2024

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

The middle grade horror debut from USA Today bestselling author Amalie Howard in which a girl stays with her grandmother in Trinidad for the summer and discovers that she comes from a long line of witches.

Thirteen-year-old Darika Lovelace is in big trouble. The kind of trouble that means she’s being sent off to her grandmother in the Caribbean. She should be grateful, but instead she’s angry. Angry at her dad and step-mom for sending her away for an entire summer. Angry at her mom who went away and never came back. But the island is definitely not what she remembers! The minute she steps off the plane, strange things start happening, including being stalked by a baby iguana. When she meets a ragtag group of children on her Granny’s estate, she knows they are not what they seem, but after they promise to take her to her long-lost mom, she leaps at the chance. Thrust into an incredible adventure involving strange monsters, a supernatural silk cotton tree, and a mysterious maze, soon the truth about her unique magical roots comes to light. She’s the island’s only hope, but unless she learns to believe in magic, all will be lost.

Amalie Howard’s Bumps in the Night is a new middle grade fantasy adventure set in the Caribbean. There’s folklore, mystery, and endearing characters that, along the way, learn valuable lessons about teamwork, the environment, and importantly about themselves.

There felt like two discernable parts to the story.

In the beginning, we’re introduced to Darika Lovelace, who has landed herself in hot water and is sent to stay with her grandmother for the summer, in Trinidad. She doesn’t want to like where she is; not the people, food, or places—because she doesn’t want to enjoy herself. For the first hundred pages or so, some of the story can come across slightly repetitive with how much she denies what she sees. However, I understood what Howard was trying to do with her character, because Darika had internalized a lot of false concepts about herself—often feeling lonely, abandoned, and as if she isn’t really being heard. Even though she was surrounded by people who still cared and loved her, it was the absence of her mother—the mystery surrounding it, and the evasiveness of the adults in her life—that negatively affected her in a very significant way. This, arguably, had an effect on the way she dealt with the others as well as the obstacles thrown her way—particularly in situations she was woefully unprepared to deal with. It was a good scenario to begin with, though.

In the second half, all the groundwork—the clues, the strange and magical instances—starts to pay off, and the fantasy adventure arrives in full force. This is one of the areas where Bumps in the Night excels (for me at least), and I flew through the rest of the story. Mazes are obstacle-laden fun, especially when they’re done well. This one was a good one.

So in Bumps in the Night there were big concepts with higher, world ending, consequences. But the journey the main character, Darika, had to undertake was never far from sight either. There was a good balance between the two, and the overall story is as fun as it was meaningful. I highly recommend Bumps in the Night.

About the author....

AMALIE HOWARD is a USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author. Always Be My Duchess was one of Cosmopolitan’s 30 Best Romance Books of 2022 and The Beast of Beswick was one of Oprah Daily’s 24 Best Historical Romance Novels to Read. She is also the author of several award-winning young adult novels. Her recent YA release Queen Bee was called “A true diamond of the first water” by ALA Booklist. Her books have been featured in The Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly, and Seventeen Magazine. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found reading, being the president of her one-woman Harley Davidson motorcycle club, or power-napping. She lives in Colorado with her family.

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