The Wicked Deep, by Shea Ernshaw, follows a teenage girl who falls in love in a cursed town off the Pacific coast. It all starts 200 years earlier when the people of the small town of Sparrow, Ore.,  found three sisters, known as the Swan sisters, guilty of practicing witchcraft. As a result, they were executed by being drowned in the harbor. Ever since that day, every year the town goes through “Swan season.”

Starting on June 1, the three sisters rise from their graves to possess the bodies of young girls to lure boys into the harbor. Because of this, there are deaths every June, and tourists come to see the curse in action. Penny Talbot, who lives on the lighthouse island just off the coast outside the small town, takes care of her mother because years ago, her father vanished and hasn’t been found. The day before another Swan season, a boy named Bo arrives in the town looking for work and a place to stay. Penny knows there’s something about him that she is yet to find out; however, she likes him and wants to keep him safe from the curse of the town. 

Readers will not want to put this book down as it’s full of adventure, love, murder, and ghosts of the sea. This book uses the elements of suspense and surprise to keep readers interested to lead up to a big plot twist toward the end. The book also focuses on the ideas of good vs. evil and villain vs. hero. 

Being in the fantasy romance genre, The Wicked Deep seems to pick up after the flood of books focusing on vampires, such as The Vampire Diaries and Twilight by going into the idea of witchcraft and talking about execution and curses. Overall, this is a book that many people have loved even if it wasn’t their regular genre, and it is recommended to anyone that will give it a chance. 

Netflix acquired the screen rights for the book in 2018, so fans could be in for a treat.