‘Hollow’ a ‘Bittersweet’ and Magical YA Mystery

I’m not sure how much of the YA genre is “teen girl and there’s magic and a town-wide mystery,” but I’ve read a few of them over the last year. Some, I’ve liked a lot. Others, I’ve liked…less. If this is a new subgenre, Kate Pearsall’s Bittersweet in the Hollow is a solid new addition to the canon.

Linden James comes from a long line of women who are unlucky in love but all have just a little magic in their blood. For Linden, that magic takes the form of being able to sense the emotions of those around her as tangible as taste. She’s been tasting a lot more worry around her since she disappeared in the woods last summer, only to return without memory of where she’d been. As the anniversary of her disappearance approaches, an old friend, Dahlia, presses her about anything she can remember from that time. Dahlia’s questions seem odd at the time, but they take on far more weight when Dahlia herself disappears on the anniversary—and Linden later stumbles onto her dead body.

When suspicion falls onto Linden, her father, the sheriff, urges her to stay home and sit tight until the investigation is over. But Linden is sure Dahlia’s death is directly related to her own disappearance, and enlists her sisters and crush to help her find out more with legwork, trickery, and a little forbidden magic. Every new clue sends Linden deeper down a path that looks like it leads far from Dahlia—but toward another disappearance decades before, and the great-aunt who left home long before Linden was born.

Linden’s voice is clear and charmingly Appalachian, without sounding hickish or clichéd (at least to these non-Appalachian eyes). Family holds strong, too, even if the grown-ups sometimes withhold information or do or say things that stymie the girls’ efforts to get to the truth. This is a staple of teen stories everywhere—adults standing in their way—and to Bittersweet‘s credit, those words, secrets, and actions feel less contrived than most. So do Juniper’s rule-breaking decisions. Teenagers in general make bad judgements and rebel in dumb ways sometimes, but in fiction it’s taken to the extreme for drama or in service of plot progression. While some of Juniper’s decisions do cause drama or advance the plot, they didn’t really strain credulity. 

This is not to say Bittersweet requires no suspension of disbelief, or that it’s perfectly plotted in every way. There is magic, after all, and I found one or two of the late-book revelations to be a little bit of a letdown. But Bittersweet was fun, and sad, and mysterious. Juniper’s world is full of love, and a whole lot of unanswered questions, and magic aside, that’s what it feels like to be a teenager a lot of the time. Pearsall’s worldbuilding, and the obvious love she has for all her characters, is what really brings this story home. Sometimes, I could almost feel the sticky heat of summer or taste the family’s famous lemon bars.

You know what? Here’s my biggest criticism of the book: so much talk of delicious foods, and not a single recipe in sight. Is there a waiting list somewhere I can get on for a companion cookbook?