REVIEW: Necromancy The Musical, by Debbie Hibbert

"Wednesday" meets "High School Musical" except it's good.

For a hot minute there—let’s say, 2000-2012—young adult books were burning up the bestseller lists, with mega-franchises hitting multiple audience targets. Harry Potter pleased boys and girls, young and old. The Hunger Games showed readers of all ages that teen sci-fi could have classical literary aspirations, and offer a profound commentary on the consequences of war. Twilight made scores of thirtysomethings scream their horniness for teen boys. It was wild, man.

As is often the case with anything culturally popular, it’s soon invaded, subverted, and conquered by social Marxists, and it quickly becomes yet another dead trophy on their wall. YA books turned to garbage and have largely remained as such for a decade, with few exceptions breaking through.

Every once in a while you get the odd book that reminds readers of the good old days, of what worked before, and can still work again. The most recent example of this that I’ve found is NECROMANCY THE MUSICAL, the debut novel from Houston author Debbie Hibbert.

The Story

Alright, we’ve got a teen girl protagonist with a penchant for raising the dead, although it’s a complicated process. Her parents are divorced. She lives with her dad, who’s a homicide detective in New Orleans. Unlike a lot of YA books in this vein, our heroine CeCe actually lets her loved ones in on her secret, and she helps her dad solve cold cases. Her best friend Portia also knows, and soon, so will her boyfriend Zack.

The problems start when CeCe encounters a mysterious Caster—someone else who is capable of magic in a general sense, but lacks her talent for necromancy. She can sense this person out there but can’t tell who he/she is, or what they want, but she’s getting ominous visions that suggest CeCe is in danger. The Caster wants her power to raise a loved one from the dead—something CeCe is strongly opposed to doing, for reasons the book will demonstrate.

All of this is happening against the backdrop of CeCe and Portia going to Drama Camp before school starts, so sparks fly amongst the highly hormonal teens, and you get a fair amount of severe thirst to keep the pages turning. Nothing explicit goes on, just your average bit of PDA, so the romance fans will stay glued to the action.

While CeCe & Co. do put on a little bit of musical performances at Drama Camp, the title is a slight misnomer in my opinion. Nevertheless, we’re watching a necromantic theater kid navigate two sets of troubled waters—one at the crossed currents of crime and magic, and the other being Boys And Their Emotions.

The Characters

CeCe is refreshingly realistic for a 2023 YA book. As the last wave of paranormal teen romances fizzled out, the trademark became late 30s Cat Moms writing adult-caliber horniness into sixteen year-old protagonists, complete with fake IDs and club-hopping. This focal character is, instead, a very credible teen girl who takes initiative when she can and relies on her loved ones when she can’t.

Best-friend Portia can be a little much early on, especially as she’s the one instigating the whirlwind romances in the periphery, but she grows well into her role and she’s not a ditz, she just has all the extroversion that CeCe lacks.

And the boy leads—Zack and Devin—were likable. I almost forgot that YA writers could portray teen boys who weren’t simps, jerks, or rapists. All in all, a breath of fresh air.

The World

Current-day New Orleans with a secret magical underground that is only known to a small handful of people. The magic isn’t overdefined, you get just enough of it to keep the story moving.

The Politics

None

Content

Mild profanity, if any, and severe PG-rated horniness.

Who’s it for?

Fans of paranormal romance, who don’t equate those words with a triple-X rating. If you thought Disney could make a neat version of The Haunted Mansion and are continually confused as to why they don’t, try this instead.

Why read it?

I for one have fond memories of the recent YA era, before it was gutted like a fish and left to rot. I refuse to believe that we can’t repeat the better-quality success of yesteryear and books like this are a reminder that we can. Check it out.