Back of Book: 

In Salem, where witch trials and ancient magic echo through the centuries, two souls with extraordinary gifts must battle an evil born from desperation and desire.

Hazel Guthrie has spent three years crushing on Devon Culver from afar. Wealthy, mysterious, and devastatingly handsome, Devon keeps everyone at arm's length from his wheelchair, radiating a dark, untouchable energy that only makes Hazel more fascinated. But when he inexplicably offers her a ride home from school, she narrowly escapes the car accident that kills her boyfriend.

Devon isn't just mysterious. He's psychic.

But something sinister is haunting him, and now it wants Hazel.

Haunted Hearts is a fast-paced YA supernatural romance with mystery and magic. This is the first book in a series.

Book Number: One

Genre: Young Adult | Fantasy | Romance 

Review: 🌟🌟

A YA urban fantasy novella set in modern day Salem in which mysterious magic still dwells in a few people that reside there. 

Hazel Guthrie’s ready to have a great senior year. She’s finally dating a jock, friends with the popular crowd, and ready to take the world by storm. Unfortunately, when Devon Culver—her longtime crush of three years—starts talking to her, everything changes. Hazel begins to learn that the paranormal is real and that she is more caught up in it than she ever could have imagined. 

This is the second book by Thompson that I read, so I sort of knew what I was going into. Thanks so much to Suzana Thompson for the gifted physical copy of this one! 

This book is a tad too underdeveloped for me to really feel that interested in it. The story is rather all over the place with it starting as a typical high school story and then evolving into a paranormal almost mystery. There are certain parts of this book that had me flabbergasted and completely confused about what was happening. Like seriously, what is up with Devon and the thing towards the end of the book? I was super confused by that entire situation, though hopefully it all becomes more coherent in book two. 

The romance in this one was icky to me. I didn’t love the fact that Hazel starts dating Matt solely because he’s popular and then leads him on while reassuring herself that she could possibly fall in love with him someday. She has a severe crush on Devon, so this felt odd to me, even if Devon has never shown her any interest before. And then when Devon starts paying attention to her, she completely pushed Matt under the bus. I think I just struggle with the way that Thompson writes romances in general, so it’s no surprise that I didn’t like Hazel’s relationship with Matt/Devon. 

Hazel also isn’t that likable. She’s very self-absorbed and always puts her problems above everyone else’s. The relationships she has are very strange, as I feel she isn’t really close to any of her friends, but still is very open with them. It may be because we didn’t have much time to get to know her, but I feel like she seems a lot younger than a senior in high school. 

This one ends on a cliffhanger, which feels a little ridiculous for a novella. This book could have just been merged with the second one to give a more cohesive story, but I know some authors just like to publish as many books as possible within a certain period of time. 

The writing in general is also weak, with some segments being quite repetitive and others having little to no detail. I think if the word choice and the way the characters think would have been stronger this one would have been easier to read. 

Overall, “Haunted Hearts” felt very lackluster to me. The romance and the characters weren’t all that likable and the plot was often choppy and confusing to follow. I think that the concept needed to be a tad more original and the writing needed to be a bit more polished to make this one a successful novella. I do own book two though, so I’ll probably give that one a read at some point and see if it increases this story’s value or not.