Review - The Well by Marie Sexton

The Well

by Marie Sexton

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Tags: Mystery Paranormal

Posted in Book Reviews on February 4, 2026

Haven’s cousin Elise was always coming up with new stories and other ways to scare him and all her other friends. Her latest scheme is to spend a night in the local haunted house where they’ll hold a seance to contact a girl supposedly murdered there many years before. Haven only agrees because his crush, Pierce, will also be there. The seance really scares all the teenagers, and in the morning, Elise has disappeared. Twelve years later, Pierce and his brother are hosts of a paranormal investigation show. Pierce contacts Haven to invite him to return to the house as part of the show, to try to find out what really happened that night.

“The Well” is a paranormal mystery centering around a group of teenage friends. It’s a very recognizable group, with leaders and followers, crushes, rebellious natures and a penchant for scary stories. There are parallels with other teen stories, where a single moment changes the course of the lives of everyone involved. The difference in this tale is that we meet most of the characters twelve years after the event to see what the effects really were.

The narration is entirely from Haven’s point of view. However, chapters alternate between the present day and the events of twelve years ago. After finishing university, Haven’s work as a writer has been an homage to his missing cousin and her many scary stories. Haven’s character is developed in a way that highlights the dichotomy between the way we see ourselves and the way other people see us. Haven thinks of himself as plain, bookish, and a little timid. It turns out others, especially Pierce, see him very differently.

Pierce is the main other character and Haven’s love interest. As teenagers, Haven had quite a crush on Pierce, and on the night Elise disappeared, he found out Pierce was attracted to him as well. But the disclosures that came after his cousin’s disappearance split the two up. Like Haven, Pierce is a skeptic when it comes to the paranormal, but neither man has been able to explain some of the things that happened before Elise disappeared. I would categorize this book as primarily a classic murder mystery, with some paranormal spice.

“The Well” is available from Bookshop.org independent bookstores.