They Call Her Regret

Desamours (Needy Little Things) delivers another speculative Georgia-set mystery in her propulsive sophomore novel. Since Halloween-obsessed Simone Washington loves “to be in control of the horror,” the teen selects purportedly haunted Doll’s Head Lake as the location of her 18th birthday party. The gathering is on track to be Simone’s best event ever. She even believes she’s found a way to persuade her best friend Kira to dump her cheating boyfriend Rich—until Simone accidentally pushes Kira, who can’t swim, into the lake. Kira’s drowning summons a witch called Regret, who offers Simone a dubious deal: if Simone frees Regret from the mysterious curse trapping her at the lake within 14 days, she’ll restore Kira’s life in exchange for Rich’s. As Simone investigates Regret’s past and the curse, she’s forced to simultaneously confront her own strained relationships with her mother and a former friend as well as Fairville, Ga.’s dark secrets surrounding a missing college student and a hit-and-run victim. Smartly paralleling high-stakes horror with Simone’s twisty personal struggle to reconcile elements of darkness both within herself and her town results in a volume that thrills and chills while probing layers of guilt that build to an unexpected resolution. Main characters read as Black. Ages 13–up. Agent: Molly Ker Hawn, Bent Agency. (Feb.)