“He was real, and he was a monster.”Obsession is deadly.No one learns that better than Luna Ketz, a pessimistic high school senior. Caught between the intentions of her Muslim father and business-minded mother, boys are the last thing on Luna’s mind, but this fact doesn’t detour mysterious bad boy Chance Welfrey from trying to gain her affection.Luna doesn’t think twice about him until girls at … about him until girls at their high school begin to disappear. Girls who tended to hurt her.
Girls she wished would disappear.
When she receives a call from a long-lost friend, normalcy goes out the window as she’s plunged into the paranormal. There’s a world beneath the surface of the unconscious mind, and the killer knows how to navigate it. Luna is in danger and although she can avoid the killer in reality, she cannot avoid him in her dreams.
Rated for mature adult themes and depictions of violence
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I absolutely loved this book!! I actually did not want it to end, it was that good. The reason why I chose this book is basically because I never heard of this author and I was looking for a book less than 100 pages and this book said it was in that category. It was said to be 50 pages. When I got the book and totally shocked it was 400+ pages. I am glad I got this book. I love dark books!! She could be the next Stephen King! I so cannot wait to read the second book in this series!
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
This is not a book for the lighthearted. This is a book that pulls no punches and takes the reader down a very dark path and never really brings light to the story in any way, shape or form.
Fans of the Brad Pitt classic, Seven, will love this book.
Dead by Morning takes on horror and I personally think this book touches upon the real horrors young people face today. There isn’t much that can compare to the horror of bullying. Bullying is a cancer that is wiping out humanity everywhere it happens. In my view, bullying should be a felony punishable by ten years in prison.
A further horror seen in this book is the horror of arranged marriage. Since I last checked, this is 2020 and not 1820. There is NO place for an arranged marriage and any parent who forces that horror on a child should get life in prison.
The other horror that sadly exists today is the horror a child faces because they are a person of color or different religion today. Some of these poor kids don’t get enough by being ostracized at school but then have to face the worry their family might not be there when they come home.
A taut, dark thriller that will grip and rend a reader. Not for the faint-hearted but very well written and well detailed in description.
My Rating: 4.5 stars
Being stuck in the middle of an ordinary life, unnoticed and left alone is exactly what Luna liked about her high school status. She had her studies and a best friend, it was perfect. But when Chance, the most popular boy in school who isn’t quite as perfect as he seems, becomes unnaturally obsessed with her and starts to haunt her every waking hour, Luna’s perfectly quiet world gets turned upside down. People are seeing her and paying attention now, something she had hoped to avoid—and being on the radar of the popular crowd, looks inevitable now. With Chance on her heels, every step she takes, Luna has no other choice then to learn how to deal. At least she can escape him in her dreams…or can she?
When people start missing in her hometown, Luna hopes to escape the madness when night comes and for sleep to find her but the journey inside her head makes all the chaos in her waking hours look like child’s play. Luna’s nightmares take her on a horrific and vivid trek that may just be her undoing or worse, someone else’s.
Every page you turn, takes you deeper into the innards of this twisted and unsettling tale. Continually making you wonder about what dark sordid things await or which direction the story is going to throw you. For those who like not knowing what to expect next mixed in with a smidgen of death and deception, Dead by Morning is the book to read.
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The book was a bit darker than my usual ones but it was well written and the horror well-balanced so I could quite enjoy it.
Chance is a character that I didn’t want to be curious about but he is a good example of the fact that nothing is only black and dark.
A good balance of the good and evil battle in the world and in everyone indeed!
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
If you have read some of my reviews of other books, you will know I have an annoying habit of reading books in the wrong order. I did the same thing again here. Book 2 told me just enough about what happened in book one for me to follow the story and made me want to go back and read book 1. I’m glad I did. It filled in some gaps and wasn’t quite what I was expecting (in a good way). Would I have gotten more out of both books if I had read them in the right order? Definitely. Book 1 makes you want to read book 2 and I really hope there is a good 3. This book leaves some open questions, which are answered in book 2. This book is a great start to a very different series.
Dead by Morning: A Dark Fiction Novel (Rituals of the Night Book 1) Kindle Edition
by Kayla Krantz
Thank you to the author, publisher and Booksirens for the complimentary copy. I received the complimentary eARC after buying it. I am choosing to leave a fair and honest review.
Using the DreamWorld/Otherworld in the novel, Ms. Krantz lays out a premise that is as much fun as the 1980s-1990s Nightmare on Elm Street. It is a truly wonderful in terms of world building – building the DreamWorld. However, the overly bulky prose does make it hard to get through the story.
Written in the third person limited, the story should move along. Unfortunately, Ms. Krantz will change speaker/thinker mid-paragraph with no warning. This makes it difficult to get through the text when you have go back a chapter to figure out who is speaking or thinking this time.
Her characters are fairly well-drawn. They tend to be all good or all evil. There isn’t a lot of nuance in the villain. As a serial killer, he should have been, in the very least, charming. I’m not quite sure why the heroine’s religion was introduced in the beginning and was not brought back up until around chapter 23. Clearly, she doesn’t believe in Chekhov’s statement “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.”’ In other words, everything that is introduced in a story needs to have a function.
The cast was overly large, particularly in the high school group. Hopefully, they faded into each other, only their hair color and eye color separating them. One of the key characters appears in the very beginning, then is not brought back until 65% of the book had passed. Trying to keep track of all the characters (Susan, Sarah, Violet, Amy, Chance, bad Chance, Luna, Luna’s father, Michelle, Max, the various teachers and so many more), is frustrating, particularly when they appear for a short while then disappear only to reappear. Stephen King and Dean Koontz can pull both of those – the large cast who disappear and reappear Ms. Krantz isn’t either that talented or that seasoned. Max’s character is perhaps the most interesting, but he appears in less than a dozen scenes. Luna starts out with a sister who, apparently, was sent to Egypt for a marriage. That sister seems to have been lost, as in Chapter 24, her father, David (a name change because of prejudice of Muslims) says “You’re my only daughter.” Luna’s mother, who works while David stays home, never appears. With the loss of both the mother and sister, I was deeply frustrated.
It took nearly 80% of the book to find out why Chance wants Luna so badly. No, there will be no spoilers.
I also had an issue with the lack of parental supervision. And an issue with these 17 year old, high school juniors no preparing for college or whatever they plant to do. This was frustrating because it makes no sense.
The text itself can be confusing, typos, misspelling, and words just not in the sentences. Clearly, an editor was necessary, considering the number of characters, character arcs and cleaning up the text.
The few scenes involving strife between the characters in the DreamWorld were too few. There wasn’t a final conflict with the big bad. Also, the DreamWorld is referred to in multiple names – DreamWorld, Otherworld, Otherrealm. I can see that in Luna’s case, as she had no idea it existed.
Not a bad book, not a great book. A serviceable book if you literally have nothing else to read, including the back of cereal boxes.
3 stars out of 5
https://smile.amazon.com/Dead-Morning-Fiction-Novel-Rituals-ebook/dp/B07QXD4F4W
What a twisty, genre-bending thrill of a novel! I loved the characters even the complicated, unlikeable ones (especially the complicated ones!). And the overall atmosphere and setting was my FAVORITE — it completely sucked me in and kept me invested in the worlds all the way through. I’m so pumped that this is a series – I’M HOOKED and ready for more!! Krantz really knocked it out of the park with this one … and the ending was perfectly done!
Who knew the dream world could be so deadly. This book definitely sucks you in and leaves you begging for more. I will definitely be listening to the next soon.
3.5 Stars for Dead By Morning By Kayla Krantz. Overall, the book was good. I did however, have to keep reminding myself that it is geared towards young adults because the characters were not as well developed and did not grow much through the book. The plot was the save I needed to give it 3.5 stars. It caught my attention and held it. I am actually looking forward to checking out book 2 in the series.
Thank you to Booksirens for the free digital copy in exchange for an honest and voluntary review. All opinions are my own.
Teen peer pressure reaches terrifying new levels in this YA paranormal thriller, in which the protagonist Luna Ketz appears to be a most unlikely heroine: she’s not popular, she’s Muslim in a predominantly white community, and she hates Chance, the boy who is determined to get her attention.
The tension between Luna and Chance continues to escalate as the story progresses and Luna finds herself caught in a web of conspiracy, secrecy and deceit. In a highly original blend of YA paranormal, mystery and horror, the gripping storyline is evidence of author’s ability to blend reality and fantasy in an intriguing way that engages the reader and causes them to invest emotionally in Luna’s fate.
‘Dead By Morning’ is easy to read and hard to put down once started.
surprising
I received this ebook in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Luna is in her senior year of highschool. She has one friend, Violet. Luna keeps to herself, head down, and is just trying to get through her last year of school. Chance is the popular kid. He could get any girl he wants. When he starts showing an interest in Luna, she knows that there must be some ulterior motive seeing how he has never done anything but annoy her.
The dreams that Luna has seem so real. It’s the same dream, over and over, sometimes picking up where it left off. She soon finds out that what happens in the dreams, happens in real life. Can she stop the fusion of the two before she and her friends end up dead?
This book was different. A little Freddy Krueger-ish. It took me a day and a half to get through the first chapter but once I did, I couldn’t put it down! It turned out to be one of those that you have to know what happens next. I ended up being very impressed with Ms. Krantz’s writing.
Wow this is one heart pounding roller coaster. This is a real page turner that I could not put down. Theres twists and turns that I didn’t see coming the Author has a brillant mind and does a Fantastic job at world building and bringing the characters out. The Narrator is fantastic with the voices. If your a lover of fast paced action packed read. Thats a real adrenaline rush this is definitely a read for you. I highly recommend.
Shauna Joesten
A great read for horror lovers
I must say that I am not a horror fan but this book grabbed my attention and I couldn’t put it down. This is a mixture of horror and paranormal that includes both a serial killer and a dream invasion. The author did a great job with plot twists and the scary factor. If you enjoy Stephen King’s books, you’ll like Dead by Morning by Kayla Krantz.
The author created a truly creepy and scary antagonist in Chance, and a frightful Dream World. I could see this being made into a movie or mini-series. I enjoyed reading this story, it pulled me in and became more interesting as the plot progressed. If you’re a fan of YA Horror, you will love this book!
This was an interesting read. I do not usually read horror related books but I was enticed by the promise of the supernatural slant and I was not disappointed. This is a great read if you are a teen or generally love your YA because Krantz writes so very well for this audience. There are some very creepy vibes running through the whole story and the atmosphere builds nicely. The preface sets the scene very nicely too and so you do wonder about Chance. At times the actions of the characters become just a little too fantastic for my personal likening but I think that really goes hand in hand with the genre, and so it’s very much to be expected. Overall, you will love this book if a YA teenage horror story is what you’re looking for. It was just grim enough to have great suspense but not too descriptive to put me off. Not a bad read at all.
Eerie and Suspenseful
Much to her surprise and distress, high school outcast Luna finds herself being stalked by the most popular boy in school, Chance. Alarmingly, he stalks her not only in the real world, but also in a strange DreamWorld with rules she’s only beginning to understand. And it appears that he may be a cold-blooded killer in both worlds.
This eerie, skin-crawling tale captures the flavor of high school relationships and conflicts, and also creates a haunting world where your worst nightmares come true. A scary, suspenseful page turner that will make you think twice before going to sleep.
I was gifted a copy of this.
Wow I never saw any of this coming.i couldn’t put it Down. It will keep you wanting to find out what happens