The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew

Summary: Delaney Meyers-Petrov is tired of being seen as fragile just because she’s Deaf. So when she’s accepted into a prestigious program at Godbole University that trains students to slip between parallel worlds, she’s excited for the chance to prove herself. But her semester gets off to a rocky start as she faces professors who won’t accommodate her disability, and a pretentious upperclassman fascinated by Delaney’s unusual talents. Colton Price died when he was nine years old. Quite impossibly, he woke several weeks later at the feet of a green-eyed little girl. Now, twelve years later, Delaney Meyers-Petrov has stumbled back into his orbit, but Colton’s been ordered to keep far away from the new girl… and the voices she hears calling to her from the shadows. Delaney wants to keep her distance from Colton — she seems to be the only person on campus who finds him more arrogant than charming — yet after a Godbole student turns up dead, she and Colton are forced to form a tenuous alliance, plummeting down a rabbit-hole of deeply buried university secrets. But Delaney and Colton discover the cost of opening the doors between worlds when they find themselves up against something old and nameless, an enemy they need to destroy before it tears them — and their forbidden partnership — apart.

A spooky paranormal read centered around a Deaf character who uses a cochlear implant and also signs a little. Andrew creates a breathtakingly detailed world in which those who brush with death forge a connection to other realities. At the heart of this suspenseful tale is Colton and Delaney’s relationship, itself forged from shared trauma. The story is also populated with terrific side characters who add lightness and humor, like Mackenzie, who can see the future. As creepy as this story is, it’s scariest revelation is that the worst monsters are those who use others for their own gain.

THE WHISPERING DARK is out now.

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