The Cellar by A.J. Whitten

There's a new guy in town. Adrien is hot, brooding, and everyone is in love with him. Heather is thrilled that he lives next door to her, because that makes her feel even closer to him. But Heather's twin sister Meredith doesn't feel the same way; in fact, she doesn't like Adrien at all, and she's not happy to see Heather falling in love with him. As Adrien and Heather's relationship gets more serious, Meredith becomes more determined to find out who Adrien really is. Is he the good guy Heather sees, the bad guy that Meredith sees - or is he something more, more monster than 'guy' at all? Things will never be the same after Meredith finds out what's going on in the cellar.

The Cellar is described as "Romeo and Juliet meet the living dead," so it's not surprising that this is a very dark, sometimes disgusting story. 'Good girl falls for bad guy' is a staple of teen fiction, and 'good girl falls for bad guy who's more than he seems' makes for a supernatural twist. The climax of The Cellar left me completely going "oh, no, it's not going to go there....", and the fact that it did left me conflicted; I couldn't tell if this made the book stronger to took it over the top. I do, though, want to read The Well, the other book by the mother-daughter pair who comprise the pseudonym of A.J. Whitten.

See more at A.J. Whitten's website.

Find it at IndieBound.

I read an advance copy through NetGalley.

Read it with:
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
Romeo's Ex: Rosalind's Story by Lisa Fiedler