There’s being the new kid at school, and then there’s being the new kid who nearly drowns and starts seeing ghosts. Sidney Cromwell gets both experiences in A Lake with No Bottom by H. D. Hunter. Apparently, adjusting to a new school wasn’t stressful enough.
This YA horror novel brings together a haunted lake, terrifying visions, and a community’s resistance to confronting its past. So far, the mystery and supernatural descriptions have pulled me in, even when certain character decisions and storytelling choices have left me scratching my head.
Thank you to the author and the publisher for the book and my honest review. This book is a part of a book tour with Toppling Stacks Tours.
Reading progress: I’m halfway through this book, so these are my impressions so far. Some of my questions may still find answers in the second half!
Sidney moves from Atlanta to rural Forsyth County, Georgia, hoping to fit in at his new high school. After he nearly drowns in Lake Lanier, however, fitting in becomes considerably more complicated. He begins experiencing disturbing visions and encounters with spirits connected to Oscarville, a Black community at the center of the novel’s buried history. Those spirits want justice, and Sidney finds himself caught between their demands and people who would rather leave the past alone.
One of the first things I connected with was Sidney’s experience as the new kid. Been there, done that, and would happily skip the reunion tour. Starting over somewhere unfamiliar means figuring out friendships, personalities, and where you belong while everyone else seems to have the instruction manual already. That part of Sidney’s situation gave me something familiar to hold onto before the supernatural trouble took over.
I liked having that relatable starting point. Sidney wants something ordinary: to belong. Watching that desire collide with experiences that make him stand out gives his situation another layer of difficulty. It’s hard enough to find your place without terrifying visions entering the conversation.
Where Hunter has worked especially well for me is in building mystery and suspense. There’s enough uncertainty surrounding Sidney’s experiences to keep me interested in what’s happening and why. The visions and nightmares are another strength. Their descriptions help communicate how frightening and disorienting this experience is for Sidney, and those passages have been some of the most effective parts of my reading so far.
My bigger frustrations involve how certain details are introduced and how characters respond to information they seem to possess.
For example, Sidney goes to Amy Jade for help, but she avoids him after getting in trouble over the incident in which he nearly drowned. Later, he encounters her mother in the school library, where she gives him a journal. That interaction suggests she knows something about what’s happening.
Then, in the next chapter, we learn that she (Amy Jade’s mother) nearly drowned in the same lake when she was a little girl.
That revelation left me wondering why she hadn’t said more during their library encounter. If she has experienced something connected to what Sidney is going through, why give him the journal without offering more explanation? From my perspective at this point, he needs help, and she appears to have information that could matter.
There may be a reason for her silence that I haven’t reached yet. I’m leaving room for that possibility. Still, the sequence felt abrupt to me, and the missing explanation made her behavior difficult to understand. I wanted a stronger connection between what she knows and what she chooses to tell him.
The journal entries have also been a stumbling block. I believe they belong to the boy in overalls who seems to be possessing Sidney, although I’m still piecing that together. The verse format feels intended to create a particular atmosphere or voice, but I’ve found the passages difficult to understand.
Instead of helping me connect with that part of the mystery, they often leave me confused and frustrated. I don’t expect every supernatural clue to arrive neatly labeled, but I want enough clarity to feel that I’m making progress. Here, I’ve sometimes struggled to understand what the entries are communicating at all.
At the halfway point, A Lake with No Bottom is a mixed reading experience for me, with some clear strengths. I connect with Sidney’s new-kid struggles, enjoy the mystery and suspense, and appreciate Hunter’s descriptions of the nightmares and visions. At the same time, abrupt revelations, unclear character motivations, and difficult journal passages have interrupted my engagement.
For now, I’m giving it 3½ stars ⭐⭐⭐✨. I’m interested in seeing where Sidney’s story goes—and whether the second half brings the clarity I’ve been looking for.
About the book:
Genre: YA Horror
Publication Date: October 20, 2026
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound
Rep: Black
Synopsis:
A Lake with No Bottom is a chilling young adult novel about a teenaged white boy who is haunted by the victims of a Black town erased from history and is recruited by the restless souls left behind to bring them justice.
When Sidney Cromwell moves to rural Forsyth County, Georgia from the big city of Atlanta, all he wants is to fit in at his new high school. But when Sidney nearly drowns in Lake Lanier, an allegedly haunted lake that is the site of numerous inexplicable freak accidents and deaths, he becomes a social pariah as he starts to suffer terrifying visions from the past and hauntings by apparitions calling him to Lanier.
Sidney returns to the lake for answers, and he finds in its murky depths the spirits of former residents from Oscarville, the Black town that lies beneath the man-made lake. They enlist Sidney to remind Forsyth of its devastating history and push its citizens to make amends so that the souls in Oscarville can finally rest.
But Sidney soon learns that people will go to great lengths to avoid facing truths they’d rather not hear. The people of Forsyth County refuse to acknowledge the past, and as Oscarville’s populace starts to lose their patience, their rage and thirst for vengeance rise like a tidal wave.
Poignant, timely, and utterly terrifying, this gripping supernatural tale is perfect for fans of Internment and She Is a Haunting.
Content warnings: Racism, discrimination, and deaths
Meet the author:
Hugh “H. D.” Hunter is from Atlanta, Georgia. He’s the author of Torment: A Novella, the Futureland trilogy, A Lake with No Bottom, and Something Like Right, as well as the winner of several international indie book awards for multicultural fiction.
Hugh is committed to stories about Black kids and their many expansive worlds.