Last year around Halloween I reviewed three new YA titles from Penguin, one of which was Michelle Jabès Corpora’s Holly Horror, a novel loosely based on Holly Hobbie that starts off a series with a bit of a cliffhanger ending. While the story didn’t feature a haunted doll as much as I would have liked, it did tell an effective haunted house story revolving around a teenage girl discovering ghosts of other girls who were wronged in the past. Reminiscent on some level with Mary Downing Hahn’s Wait Till Helen Comes, Corpora’s Holly Horror switches a family formed through remarriage to one of a recently divorced mother with two children, doubles the number of former-teen-girl ghosts (Sarah & Holly), and adds in more of a romantic interest for the protagonist (Desmond).
The first book is good, and I enjoyed it, but the sequel steps everything up in significant ways to outshine the first. And its setting around Christmas and a high school staging of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol makes this one work better for this time of year than Halloween, or the summer when both the books have been released. Holly Horror: The Longest Night picks up right after the ending of the first book, and builds quite significantly on the menace that has created the supernatural situation that plagues protagonist Evie, lured Sarah and Holly to their deaths, and now threatens the entire town. The sequel answers lingering questions from the first book, while also adding in richer details to Evie’s familial situation with the arrival of her father.
Evie’s brother ends up taking a back seat compared to the first novel, which seems somewhat off considering the impact of the estranged father’s return into their lives. Likewise, Evie’s friend Tina appears a bit, particularly for the denouement. Yet, the focus on Evie and her problems (mundane and supernatural) makes sense and leaves the novel more focused than the first felt at times. Complicating Evie’s ability to make decisions and find a way to save Desmond from what befell him at the end of the first novel is Evie’s introduction to Sai, a quiet, loner sort who seems to just want to ride his motorcycle and be brooding, yet finds himself falling for Evie. Meanwhile Evie finds herself strangely attracted to Sai, despite her love for the absent Desmond.
The love triangle and characterizations tend towards the cliché and expected, but Corpora balances this by also upping the creepy/scary factor here in The Longest Night and some surprises regarding the antagonist who threatens all. Evie also continues her communication with the ghost of Holly that builds on the events of the first novel in satisfying fashion.
Finally, Corpora really manages the atmosphere in this second novel of the series with its winter setting and Evie’s participation in the production of A Christmas Carol with costume design. No longer relying on expectations of haunted house/doll stories, this sequel builds the horror atmosphere well in ways that seem far more threatening to Evie (and the adults of her town) than in the first novel.
If you are a fan of YA horror or dark fantasy and haven’t checked out the Holly Horror series yet (or introduced it to a teen you may know), it is worth doing so. So far, the series has only gotten better.
