The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle
Release Date - August 18, 2015
Publisher Website - Penguin
Publisher Social Media - Twitter
Pages - 304 pages
My Rating - 4.5/5
**received from publisher for review**

Here is the Goodreads synopsis

For fans of We Were Liars and How I Live Now comes a haunting, sexy, magically realistic debut about a family caught between a violent history, a taboo romance, and the mysteries lurking in their own backyard.

Every October Cara and her family become inexplicably and unavoidably accident-prone. Some years it's bad, like the season when her father died, and some years it's just a lot of cuts and scrapes. This accident season-when Cara, her ex-stepbrother, Sam, and her best friend, Bea, are 17-is going to be a bad one. But not for the reasons they think.

Cara is about to learn that not all the scars left by the accident season are physical: There's a long-hidden family secret underneath the bumps and bruises. This is the year Cara will finally fall desperately in love, when she'll start discovering the painful truth about the adults in her life, and when she'll uncover the dark origins of the accident season-whether she's ready or not. 

Magical realism when done right blurs the edges between what is real and fantasy seamlessly. It creates a transparent line that feels dreamy, and almost fever like in nature. The Accident Season nails the subtlety this genre requires and blends everything together to create a spooky, atmospheric, romantic read that is all together unique.

This is a quieter, complex novel that unravels at it's own pace. A novel that delights in the moments that exist in between the larger ones, and allowing itself time to breathe. It's a slower, much more character driven story. It's strengths are in the writing, character development and lush descriptions. It is not filled with action filled fireworks, but instead offers up a deeper reflection on the characters, and examines actions and the consequences that result from them.

Part of this novel's allure is unraveling the truth. The questions that plague the characters are the ones also haunting the readers. The truth behind the 'accident season' and the secrets it holds are, like everything else in the novel, deeper and richer than what appears at first glance. This novel is like an ocean, hiding it's truths at the very bottom. It remains a little elusive, even after revealing it's secrets to you, but that elusiveness is what makes it so compelling. An excellent magical realism novel walks the tightrope between diving too far into the fantasy and rigidly staying attached to the real and tangible. This novel expertly walks that tightrope leaving just enough magic to make the novel memorable, while dishing out enough realism to break your heart.

This novel is creepy and unsettling but it does so subtly. The author embraces the less is more approach in favour of letting our imaginations conjure up the worst. It casts a dizzying spell that allows the chills to creep up on you but in a restrained manor.  The unsettled feeling is cultivated through clever writing and atmosphere is where Moira Fowley-Doyle's talent truly shines. She makes even romance feel like it's tinged with a quiet darkness, and that leaves a lasting impression.

A lyrical novel that reads like an Irish folk tale. It is an effortless blend of magic and realism that combines into a spelling binding read. This may be Moira Fowley-Doyle's debut, but I anticipate much more from her in the future.