Holly Horror is a beloved classic reimagined with a dark twist, now in paperback! With book 2 just around the corner, we asked Michelle Jabès Corpora to refresh our memories on all the major, chilling moments of the first installment before we dive into Holly Horror #2: The Longest Night.

Scroll down to read the recap, and remember to preorder your copy of the sequel here!

10 Things to Remember Going into Holly Horror #2: The Longest Night

Hi, I’m Michelle Jabès Corpora, author of the Holly Horror series. I know it’s still summertime, but spooky season is right around the corner, so it’s a perfect time to dive back into Ravenglass and the shadowy world of Holly Horror!

Penguin Teen challenged me to recap the major moments of Book 1, so readers can be fully prepared to launch into the epic conclusion, The Longest Night. Are you ready? Hold onto your bonnets—here we go!

New Girl in Town: When Evie Archer arrives in the small town of Ravenglass, she comes with her overbearing mom, her younger brother Stan, her trusty sewing machine, and her hopes for a fresh start. Ravenglass is a quaint little New England town, famous for its charm and its gold mines. It’s as different as you can get from Evie’s hometown of New York City! After her parents’ bitter divorce, Evie had to leave her old life behind and start over, moving to an old house that’s been in the family for decades: Hobbie House.

The Lost Girl of Ravenglass: Built in the 1800s, Hobbie House was once home to Evie’s mother’s cousin, a girl named Holly Hobbie. In 1982, fifteen-year-old Holly infamously vanished from her bedroom one night and was never seen again. The story of her disappearance captivated the nation, because it wasn’t the first time Hobbie House was part of an unsolved mystery. More than a hundred years earlier, the original owner of the house was found dead there, and his young daughter missing. Among locals, she was known as the Patchwork Girl, due to the bonnet and prairie dress she always wore. Between the two lost girls, the old house on a hill gained quite a dark reputation, inevitably becoming the  Horror House. After Holly’s parents moved away, the house stood empty for forty years. Until, of course, Evie and her family moved in.

Playmate, Come Out and Play with Me: Evie’s hopes for a fresh start are shattered when the past starts to come back to haunt her—literally. After finding an old bonnet and a diary up in the attic, Evie begins to be visited by the shadow of Holly Hobbie, who in many ways, is a lot like Evie herself. Despite befriending the sheriff’s daughter Tina Sànchez, and the swoon-worthy Desmond King, Evie is increasingly isolated as Holly takes over her mind with her singsong voice and her demands for Evie to “come out and play.”

History Repeats Itself: The more Evie finds out about Holly’s past, the more she realizes that history seems to be repeating itself. She discovers that right before Holly disappeared, she’d been visited by a specter, too: the shadow of the Patchwork Girl. Not only that, Holly had also secretly been dating Desmond’s father, back when they were both in high school. With Evie and Desmond quickly falling for each other, it seems like everything that happened forty years earlier is happening again. Will Evie be able to break the cycle, or is she destined to suffer the same fate as Holly herself, and become another Lost Girl?

Say Yes to the Dress: Unable to discern what’s real and what isn’t, Evie finds herself falling under Holly’s spell. With Homecoming coming up and Evie looking for a sewing project for her class at school, the idea for a new dress—made with old fabric she found in the attic at Hobbie House—appears in her imagination. Is it her own design, or someone else’s? Driven by an unearthly desire to make the idea a reality, Evie prepares for her Homecoming Night with Desmond, ignoring the terrors that increasingly haunt her every day.

Homecoming Nightmare:

When Evie’s Homecoming plans are derailed by Desmond’s jealous ex-girlfriend, she thinks she’ll never be able to enjoy her special night. But Holly has other ideas . . . she is determined to force Evie to have the Homecoming Night that she never had. Possessed by the shadow of her long lost relative, Evie dons her haunting, homemade dress, and goes to the dance. But the night doesn’t go at all as planned. By the end, Evie has broken Holly’s spell over her and figured out the mystery of her disappearance, but not before her brother Stan disappears down into the gold mines, exactly where Holly vanished to back in the 80s. Evie has no choice but to follow him down, down, down, into the darkness, in hopes of getting rescuing him before it’s too late.

Down to the Shadow Land:

After finding an entrance to an abandoned mineshaft in Hobbie House’s cellar, Evie finds herself not in a dark tunnel, but in a strange, surreal dreamland that looks like a mirror version of old Ravenglass, a world stuck in time. There, Evie is forced to relive old, painful memories, and hears Desmond’s voice calling out to her. Finally, she confronts Holly Hobbie, and manages to bring the girl back to herself—breaking a forty-year-old spell that had been keeping the girl trapped in the dark ever since she disappeared. Now more friend than foe, Holly tells Evie how to find her brother, but warns her that there are greater evils lurking in the Shadow Land . . .

Home Sweet Home . . . Or Is it?:

After rescuing her brother Stan and finding their way out of the abandoned gold mines, Evie makes it back home. With a new outlook on life, she mends her relationship with her mother and starts to think that maybe the worst is behind her. Until Tina tells her the next morning that Desmond went after her into the gold mines on Homecoming Night, and never came out again. Remembering Holly’s warning and hearing Desmond’s voice calling to her in the dark wonderland, Evie realizes with horror that the nightmare isn’t over yet.

Both books are on shelves now . . . so grab a blanket, a cup of tea, and settle in for some spooky, haunted fun!

Read more about Holly Horror #1

Read More about Holly Horror #2