Adrienne Young, the New York Times bestselling author of SPELLS FOR FORGETTING and THE UNMAKING OF JUNE FARROW, returns with yet another magical, atmospheric mystery about confronting the ghosts of one’s past.

Twins Johnny and James Golden were once inseparable. Born in the remote, claustrophobic logging town of Six Rivers, California, to teenagers who married only because that’s what you did, they were unwelcome surprises in an unwelcoming life. Their mother, terrified of being trapped in her small town forever, left only a few years later. By the time the siblings were 17, their father took a temporary-turned-permanent job in Oregon, leaving them to fend for themselves for most of high school.

In Six Rivers, everyone knows everyone, and outsiders are not welcome. So their neighbors were happy to turn their heads as the unaccompanied minors went on unparented, maintaining the tacit agreement that they would step in if Johnny and James ever needed them. James, a budding artist, always knew she would leave Six Rivers. And while the more steadfast Johnny encouraged her dream, he didn’t share it. So when a tragedy at the local gorge pushed James out sooner and with more finality than expected, Johnny didn’t bat an eye. But he didn’t go with her, either.

"Full of dark truths about secrets, betrayals and the crafting of one’s reality, A SEA OF UNSPOKEN THINGS is proof that no one writes moody, spellbinding mysteries or has greater control of ancient magic and the line that blurs it into reality than Young."

Twenty years have passed, and while Johnny and James are not joined at the hip as they once were, they maintain the kind of eerie, metaphysical twin bond that simply cannot be explained. That’s why, when James felt a sudden shock to her ribcage and a spreading of hot, thick warmth around the impact zone, she knew that her brother was in danger. Shortly after, the call followed: Johnny had been working on an environmental project tracking owls when he was felled by an unidentified stray hunter’s bullet. The story makes sense, to a point. Six Rivers is visited only by outside loggers and hunters, and it’s no secret that many of the hunters use ancient, unregistered guns passed down through generations.

But in that knowledge comes the crux: Johnny, raised in the very forest that makes Six Rivers so wild, would never be caught outside during hunting season without his reflective gear. On top of that, he was found with no camera or notebook --- nothing to indicate why he’d be out in the very same gorge that changed his and his sister’s life forever, especially with his project deadline rapidly approaching. And then there’s James’ twintuition. Beyond feeling the impact of the bullet and the hot spread of blood in her chest, she also felt fear. He was scared when he died, and, she senses, not alone.

Now, three-and-a-half months after Johnny’s death and 20 years after she left Six Rivers, James is back in the town that made her. Six Rivers National Forest has always felt larger than life and wild in a way that is magical. James expects the heavy weight that comes with returning, but still she is not prepared for the memories that crackle at her from every corner, or the way she feels when she sees Micah, Johnny’s best friend and the boy she left behind. She claims to have returned to settle her brother’s affairs and complete his conservation project. But the truth is that she’s aware that someone knows what happened to him. By being back in Six Rivers and tracing his last steps, she hopes that she can plug in to the uncanny, otherworldly bond that she shared (or shares?) with him to find out what really happened when he died.

A few uncomfortable and surprisingly friendly reunions later, James learns that Johnny hadn’t changed much in the years since she’d left. Always mercurial, Johnny had a magnetic quality that drew people in, even while his darker side warned others away. Labeled as the “bad” twin early on, Johnny wasn’t exactly a rulebreaker, but he operated outside of the normal social contract, believing that it was fine for him to do what needed to be done for the greater good. But while his core remained unchanged, James is unprepared to discover that Johnny formed new allegiances and alliances in town that previously would have been unthinkable. On top of that, James learns that Johnny had been mentoring a teenage girl named Autumn with whom he seemed to share a close bond, but one that he neglected to tell her about, despite the many similarities between her and Autumn.

Lurking underneath the surface of James’ investigation into her brother’s life and death is the tragedy that forced her from Six Rivers for good: the death of the town’s golden boy during their senior year. Lying at the heart of each mystery is a disturbing portrait of Johnny, one that suggests that he realized long ago that James would be safest farther away from him. But whether the danger he sensed came from him or some force larger than the both of them is something that James will have to look deep inside Six Rivers and herself to determine. Some truths, though, are better left unspoken.

Adrienne Young crafts an immersive, thickly atmospheric setting like no author writing today. Readers of her previous books will recognize her signature talent for infusing deep, verdant forests with not just biology and life, but old-world, ancient magic. Even though her works all share this trait, each of her settings is fresh and unique, a world apart from its predecessors. The forest of Six Rivers is smothering, claustrophobically so, and her characters carry the weight of that burden in everything they do. The twins (though we never truly meet Johnny on the page) are the perfect mirrors of their surroundings, and Young crafts them with her usual emotional depth and believable development. But it is the intertwining mysteries, each of them marked by a tragic death, that ground and propel her narrative, exquisitely juxtaposing the raw, visceral magic of her world to make something that feels almost mathematically balanced, but still surprising and beautiful.

Full of dark truths about secrets, betrayals and the crafting of one’s reality, A SEA OF UNSPOKEN THINGS is proof that no one writes moody, spellbinding mysteries or has greater control of ancient magic and the line that blurs it into reality than Young.