Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood
Andromeda is a debtera trained to expel ghosts. She may lack the credentials for serious jobs, but a household as desperate as she is has handed her a contract. In a foreboding, creaking castle, the Evil Eye is at work and Andromeda is tasked with cleansing the place, which has been host to disappearances and nightly horrors. The few household members remaining include the servants and wealthy, troubled heir Magnus Rochester. Andromeda is pulled toward Magnus even as his behavior unsettles and confuses her; even as she begins to realize he’s as besieged by the Evil Eye as the house itself.
Life has taught Andromeda that trust should not be handed out freely and that she is unwanted, and her mentor and guardian has taught her that a neck stuck out for others is a neck broken. The dangerous job she’s signed onto and Magnus himself will put her heart and survival skills to their biggest test yet.
This light horror YA novel is full of deliciously creepy moments and a turbulent, slow-burn romance. Then there’s Andromeda, an intense character who deserves better than she’s received. She’s the human personification of a knife, a young woman who hasn’t been spared an ounce of affection. It has all the tension and dread of its source material while making the story new and offering a setting that delivers us out of the Western world and into the back alleys and supernatural underground of an alternate timeline Ethiopia. If you’re looking for a story with a heart as chilly as these winter days, try this on for size.
