A powerful novel with strong lessons about self-worth
Thank you so much to TBR and Beyond Tours and Kate Alice Marshall for allowing me to be part of this experience and also providing me with a complimentary book and media kit!
Book Information
Publishing Date: August 1, 2023
A ghost haunting her boarding school uncovers a teen girl’s best kept secrets in the Queen of Scream’s deliciously terrifying new novel.
Everyone has heard the story of the Narrow. The river that runs behind the Atwood School is only a few feet across and seemingly placid, but beneath the surface, the waters are deep and vicious. It’s said that no one who has fallen in has ever survived.
Eden White knows that isn’t true. Six years ago, she saw Delphine Fournier fall into the Narrow—and live.
Delphine now lives in careful isolation, sealed off from the world. Even a single drop of unpurified water could be deadly to her, and no one but Eden has any idea why. Eden has never told anyone what she saw or spoken to Delphine since, but now, unable to cover her tuition, she has to make a her expenses will be paid in return for serving as a live-in companion to Delphine.
Eden finds herself drawn to the strange and mysterious girl, and the two of them begin to unravel each other’s secrets. Then Eden discovers what happened to the last girl who lived with she was found half-drowned on dry land. Suddenly Eden is waking up to wet footprints tracking to the end of her bed, the sound of rain on the windows when the skies are clear, and a ghostly silhouette in her doorway. Something is haunting Delphine—and now it’s coming for Eden, too.
Book Links
- Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63242162
- Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Narrow-Kate-Alice-Marshall/dp/0593405145
- Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-narrow-kate-alice-marshall/1142610540
- IndieBound: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-narrow-kate-alice-marshall/19082931
Content and Trigger Warnings
For a list of warnings, tropes, and representation for this series, check out BookTriggerWarnings.com.
About the Author
Kate Alice Marshall is the author of young adult and middle grade novels, including I AM STILL ALIVE, RULES FOR VANISHING, and THIRTEENS.
She lives outside of Seattle with her husband, two dogs named Vonnegut and Octavia, and two kids. They all conspire to keep her on her toes.
Author Links:
- Website: https://katemarshallbooks.com/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/kmarshallarts
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kmarshallarts/
- Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17294875.Kate_Alice_Marshall
Review (no spoilers)
If you’d like to follow along with the rest of the tour, you can find the tour schedule here.
Reading this book was an adventure because the plot kept surprising me left and right. Going into it, I thought I had a good understanding of where the story was going to go, and then it started going in a completely different direction. Around halfway through I thought I had another good understanding of how it was going to end, and then it twisted and turned right out of my grasp yet again!
The basic premise of this YA horror novel is that our high school heroine, Eden, begins living in a house on her campus as part of a deal to get her tuition paid for. Eden’s “job” is simply to be a companion for Delphine, another student who is confined to the house due to a life-threatening medical condition—one that started immediately after Eden witnessed Delphine fall into (and somehow survive) the deadly stream on campus called “The Narrow”. It doesn’t take long for Eden to discover that the house is haunted by a spirit that seems willing to do absolutely anything to get what it wants.
I loved literally every character in the book for being exactly who they were meant to be. The villains were perfectly villainous, and the heroes were beautifully flawed. Their personalities and stories were so raw and believable that it felt like I was living Eden’s life with her as I flipped through these pages. Eden is a self-sacrificing girl who cares very deeply about everyone around her and her willingness to push down her own needs to make everyone else happy was something I can definitely relate to. Despite her lack of self-worth, she has a strong support group in the form of 3 friends who are ready and willing to have her back; she just has some trouble understanding it.
The plot of this book is somewhat complicated, but it was also incredibly powerful. There are several love stories intertwined within these haunting pages, but I think the most important one was about Eden learning what it means to love herself.
Jenjenreviews 
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