The Accident Season

By: Moïra Fowley-Doyle

Narrated by: Colby Minifie

For fans of We Were Liars and How I Live Now comes an addictive, sexy, twisty YA novel you won't want to miss.

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.

Critic reviews

"Fowley-Doyle’s stunning debut novel weaves the temporal and the spiritual into a seamless reality, rich in emotional impact. Devastating loss and abuse are balanced by romance, teen hijinks, and spine-tingling discoveries. . . . This thought-provoking narrative will cast its spell over older teens and adults alike."—School Library Journal, starred review

"Ghosts, secrets, and magic collide in this Irish author's astonishing debut. . . . a moving portrait of a fractured family, knitting itself back together with courage and love. A powerful novel from an exciting new talent."—Kirkus, starred review

"Beautifully crafted and atmospheric, the magic realism of this book gradually peels away to expose secrets and reveal unexpected truths. Readers will be swept away by Fowley-Doyle’s lyrical writing and entrancing premise in this tale of forbidden love and magic."—Booklist

"Sensuous, eerie​, lyrical. . .Fowley-Doyle’s The Accident Season reads like a poem. The mystery is intriguing, the writing is gorgeous, and the characters are vivid. A lovely debut."—April Tulcholke, author of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

"The Accident Season is amazing."—Holly Black

"Atmospheric and magical."—VOYA

"A lyrical and sometimes chilling exploration of the ways in which we manipulate memories to fall in line with our present narrative—the lies we tell ourselves to keep our brains safe and happy. Cara’s narration brilliantly, sometimes brutally conveys the unraveling of both Cara and her family…and the bittersweet ending will haunt readers as much it does Cara."—BCCB

Creepy Coming of Age Story

This is one of those books that is creepy and disturbing without being too much. The dab of magical realism involved in the story echoes that of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I recommend this to anyone in the mood for a good metaphor.

dreamlike

Wonderful narrator! her voice made the story so much more enjoyable. it was like listening to a dream.

Read this book!

The Accident Season is creepy, beautiful, strange, lovely, haunting, powerful, and sad: all in one.

Starts out cute, but does not stay that way

The story starts out cute, a creative tale of horror anticipating the close of October. But as the story progresses in this YA novel, an urge builds up in me to grab a knife and slice off the Y. At least to ward off unwary readers not comfortable with horror in drunken orgies and from abusive step Dads. And a few other themes. That done, the sophistication of the telling of the story, not the joy of reading it, is what I remember, so I give it high marks.

Very interesting story

What made the experience of listening to The Accident Season the most enjoyable?

I loved the way the person reading it really felt like Cara. It was interesting way to tell a sad story. I had an experience that was similar to the one told, where I replaced hurt/sadness with fantasy. Books like these make me feel a little bit more sane!

What did you like best about this story?

The imagery was beautiful & I enjoyed the struggle between the characters to figure out what "normal" is.

Have you listened to any of Colby Minifie’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The moment of understanding what has really happened to Cara and her siblings. You really understand what made her mother worry so much & why "accidents happen"