I could see what the author was intending here, evoking the popularity of IT and Stranger Things but this didn't deliver. As a result it's hard not to compare the group of youngsters in this book to those others and they fell very short. It's unfortunate because the idea was very promising.

This book was a perfect mix of Stranger Things meets Stephen King. 

It was not  relaxing read, I found nd myself really tense, rushing on to find out how things would end for the 5 friends.  The horrors they had to endure, I felt like I was a sixth member just along for the ride. 

I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who does not mind a little gore and guts.

A spooky YA thriller that goes from creepy folklore to gut-churning horror. Grisly and disturbing, but with real heart and great characters, especially Arkle. 

A love letter to the 80s in general, and 80s horror in particular.

This book had me intrigued from the start. Stranger things meets Stephen King. What's not to like? I read this in one sitting it was that good the slow build into a fast paced horror this book has all the premise of a brilliant film. September (short for September) has one amazing summer where he and his friends Arkle, Mack, Hadley and Lamb find a box in a wood and decide to sacrifice things that would make them be friends. However move forward four years later,that summer is forgotten and Sep is looking for ways to leave. Suddenly the four are at his side again and something is wrong. Someone broke the rules and the box is wanting revenge. On their hunt to right this wrong we see this group of strangers become something more their feelings of friendship slowly coming to the forefront. We go back further into the past, uncover more secrets about the box and the power it has. Dead things come back to life , loved ones are killed and finally Sep realises what he must do to stop this once and for all. Wow this book was good. So much so I was desperate to continue reading more of Martin Stewarts. I've already but in my preorder!

There aren't many great horror writers for children who don't focus more on being disgusting rather than truly disturbing. This isn't one of those. This was definitely chilling with an air of menace all the way through although it did have the gross elements as well.
Five children on holiday (with the 80s cache of unusual names) come across a stone box and decide to leave a sacrifice inside. But there are rules to their sacrifice and they vow not to break them.
Four years later they have drifted apart. But then strange things start happening to them and they relaised that someone has broken the rules and something is out to get them.
As mentioned in other reviews, it has stirrings of Stranger Things and Stand by me but I found mainly it reminded me of early Stephen King.
It wasn't really my sort of book, by the cover it seemed like a fantasy but I gave it a shot and it was enjoyable. In honesty I was struggling up until about 45% of the way through and that's when it picked up for me.
The characters are generally likable or engaging enough for a teen novel, although not all of them were as fleshed out as I would like.
I liked the 80s references and the sarcasm of Arkle. The gore was a little much at times but I know several teenage boys I can recommend it to who would love it.

I love Stephen King books so this book suited me down to the ground. A good story that I can imagine would make a fantastic film.  Great diversity of characters that made me want to cry and laugh. A good page turner that was very atmospheric.  Well done Martin Stewart.

A quiet island, a horror story and an 80s soundtrack based around a group of teens makes for a dark YA story that may give you nightmares.  Or perhaps flashbacks to your own childhood.
September Hope and his friends stepped away from the blood brother oath and put prize possessions in to a box  with mystical rules in the woods in the hope of binding them together, but like the 80s perm they eventually fell out. Fast forward several years to broken rules, broken friendships and teenage angst.
This book is funny and dark, a great mix that make for a good book. The musical references feel redundant, however if they were a playlist that went along with the book that'd be better and would make for a great atmosphere. 
The characters are funny and could easily be your own friends. The jock, the brain, the bad boy, etc they are the 80s stereotypes, but they are familiar. My only issues with the characters were keeping them straight in my mind, they seem to blend together as does their dialogue. 
There are a few additional arcs to the story such as romance and a comet, but these feel like later addictions rather than actual story arcs. The actual story has a lot of elements that push it along. Zombies, dark crows and evil dolls - its enough to have you checking the closet and sleeping with the light on.
Overall this is a fantastically dark YA that will keep your reading through the short snappy chapters. Grab this book for a single sitting or a weekend of darkness, but don't read expect to sleep too well afterwards.

Never come to the box alone
Never open it after dark
Never take back your sacrifice

These are the rules. They must never, ever be broken.

This book was advertised for fans of IT, Stranger Things and Stand by Me. With the main characters being kids/teens in the 80s, a very creepy plot and themes of the strength of friendship, it's not hard to see why!

The novel takes place on an unnamed Scottish Island (based on the Isle of Arran as confirmed by the author in the Acknowledgements section of the book). This gives the setting a somewhat "small town" vibe cut off from the rest of the world. The 5 main characters meet and bond one Summer when their usual friends are away. They discover a mysterious box in the woods and decide to each make a sacrifice by putting something important to them into the box. The Summer comes to an end and the friends drift apart going back into their previous friendship groups...

4 years later bad things begin to happen to the kids...a rule has been broken...The only way to fix it is by coming back together and rebuilding their bond to face the evils of the box together!

Although this book is very much written in a "Young Adult" style. It is not a childish book! It is extremely dark and I would definitely put it into the genre of "Horror". There is a lot of gore and descriptive deaths of both people and animals which might not be some people's cup of tea. Honestly though, you can't expect a book to be marketed for fans of Stephen King without it being pretty dark! The plot itself is pretty King-esque generally, not only with the kids meeting and bonding in the woods over a summer (IT, The Body) but also dead zombie animals (Pet Sematary), Evil kids toys (The Monkey) etc. Although the plot had a lot of similarities to King, the writing style was completely different so I don't feel like there was too much "copying" involved. 

Throughout the darkness of the plot in all its visceral grimness there is also humour and light and the power of friendship which balances the plot nicely. I found the writing itself to be thoroughly smooth and enjoyable with some really beautiful prose at some points.

The characters are enjoyable and likeable in their own way, although it would have been nice to learn more about the characters other than Sep to really get to understand and love them.

The ending leaves quite a few unanswered questions which is a shame and a bit of a downpoint to an otherwise very enjoyable book.

Overall, I zoomed through this book and it left me wanting more. The writing was excellent and with a little more development of the characters and plot this book has some really great potential.

Thank you very much to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review

The blurb for this book lured me in; the story it told had me hooked from the start.

Tagged as reminiscent of Stand By Me, and Stranger Things will surely be enough to ensure a large readership. Perhaps that's a bit of a wide catch all, as the book is set in the 80's, and centres around a group of teenagers as they struggle with the supernatural. That's irrelevant though - the story is fantastic, and fans of those titles should love this.

The only part I found annoying in this was the sections set in 1941 were severely lacking in spaces. I'm not sure if this was intentional, or an editing error - whichever it is, it needs putting right. It made those sections really hard to read.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in order to provide an honest review.  

I’m not usually a fan of scary things - too much Stephen King as a kid - but the blurb for this book sounded so intriguing that I couldn’t resist.  It’s actually very King-esque, a supernatural scare-fest that I had to read with the lights on!

The characters are sympathetic, easily identifiable types of teenager (the swot, the jock, the popular girl, the weird ones). Their journey through the book is as moving as it is terrifying, and captured in a plot that is well-paced and not entirely predictable.

My only criticism is that the setting is hard to pin down - it’s definitely somewhere in Britain, but there are a lot of Americanisms, such as playing football in college, finishing high school at 18, and liberal use of the insult ‘asshole’ alongside more the traditional ‘dickhead’.  I found it a bit jarring, and it interrupted the flow of the novel.  However, I still couldn’t put the book down, and I would recommend it to fans of Stephen King and his ilk.

What a page turner.  Set very much in the concept of IT and Stand by Me by Stephen King this creepy little novel kept me awake at night reading until the early hours with just “Barnaby” for companionship!  Loved it.  The characters were well drawn and realistic.  Highly recommended for horror fans..

One summer 70's evening, five boys discover a box in the woods. To cement their friendship, the friends decide to make sacrifices to the box by giving up something meaningful to place inside, with the threat that if one of them opens the box, terrible things will happen.
1982, and the friends have drifted apart. Until terrible, wicked things start to happen. Someone has broken the pact and opened the box.

On ready the blurb for this, I immediately drew comparisons with IT, The Goonies and Stand By Me which unfortunately does not help the novel. There's nothing new here, except a large portion of animal cruelty. I believe the novel is aimed at young adults and children - yet I found some of these violent scenes quite graphic in nature, and uncomfortable to read about. They didn't seem to fit with the target audience at all.

The characters, when comparing to these classic 80's films and novels, are also rather underdeveloped. We never spent enough time with one character (with the possible exception of Sep) to really understand their nature and get to know them. It's also hard to understand how any of these boys were even friends. There's no emotional connection between them at all except for their link to the box. This is proven by the fact that they've drifted apart by the time 1982 comes around.

The plot also suffers, as the author tries to pull the reader in several directions at once, not allowing you to concentrate on one plot development at a time. This makes the story convoluted and confusing at times as I was constantly trying to remember what everyone was doing at any given time. There was too much going on at once.

Disappointing.

For some reason I was expecting something mysterious yet light and fun. Guess what .. I was wrong. Oh how wrong I was.

In The Sacrifice Box we meet a group of 5 friends. Sep, Lamb, Arkle, Hadley and Mack. During one very sunny and fun summer holiday the kids find a box in the woods. In remembrance of the great time they had, they decide to put one personal item each into the box. A sacrifice for their friendship, you could say. 
But four years later they sacrifices come back to haunt them.

My first mistake was to expect something light. My second was to start reading this book at 10 in the evening. I struggled a bit at the beginning to get into the book and characters but soon found myself super invested in Sep and his life. The story is very well told and creates an amazing and creepy atmosphere.

I did not enjoy this much. The characters are very flat and not that likeable. I did read it and can see some people would enjoy this. I don’t think I’d buy anything else by the author.

Fantastic read! I can feel the stranger things link there, and Ive only watched the first 5 episodes of that haha.. spooky and twisted, keeping you gripped and wanting more.

While in the forest, five friends come across a stone box and decide to leave a sacrifice in it, something that's special to them. When they made the sacrifice they made a pact that they would never return alone or at night.
Four years later strange things start happening and not in a good way. One of them must have broken that promise and  returned to the box, but who was it? They find they are not the first children to have made a sacrifice in the box. Will any of them survive what the box has in stall for them?
There is plenty of gore in this book but for me it was a bit far fetched. Also when the story took you back in time I couldn't read the chapters as all the words were joined together, only the odd sentence readable, which spoiled it. For me it was a very disappointing read
I received a copy of this book via NetGalley, this is my honest and unbiased review

I enjoyed this book. The story and characters did remind me of a 1980s Stephen King novel, but that isn't a bad thing in my eyes. Overall I would recommend this book to horror story fans.

The ’80s ‘rites of passage’ trope has become a very popular angle to rework in recent years – the familiar themes of Stand by Me and the Goonies have been revisited in the likes of Stranger Things and IT, and The Sacrifice Box sits quite firmly in this bracket. 5 young friends, Sep, Lamb, Hadley, Mack and Arkle find themselves taking part in a sacrifice of sorts – each of them choosing something meaningful (to them) that should go into the strange box they’ve unearthed in the forest. The box is sealed, the pact is made. The rules of the Sacrifice Box are clear: Don’t go back to it at night, don’t go back to it alone, and don’t ever remove your sacrifice.

Fast forward a few years, and we learn from September (Sep) that the group have moved on and don’t have much contact with each other, except for seeing each other at school. Sep is lonely, and constantly worried about his Mum, a police officer who was battling cancer when he made his sacrifice to the box and has since recovered. Sep is even bullied by some of his former friends, who call him ‘Septic’. The group has all but forgotten about their pact, and the box, until one day, horrible things start to happen that can mean only one thing – someone has broken the pact and opened the box…

There were a few odd things about this book – the focus seemed to move around a lot, and I felt at times I was trying to follow a couple of stories, all of which were quite depressing. The box had obviously been opened and filled before, in a different age, or ages. No longer had I worked out what was going on in one timeframe, I was in another. Geographically, I wasn’t sure where it was supposed to be set, it seemed initially like it was an Island area in the US…but from the descriptions it sounded more like one of the islands off the British Isles – perhaps it is meant to be somewhere that could be anywhere, but it doesn’t really achieve that. That’s not particularly important though, more an observation.

I did like the relationship between the group, it rings true that those friends you have when you are really little are often not your friends throughout the rest of your life. Some you lose contact with and find again, sometimes more than once. Some, you just grow out of. There’s also a role for everyone in the group from the leader, down to the clown. I felt there was a lot of realism in the teenage feelings and frustrations – Sep never able to let go of the worry that his Mum is going to fall ill again and leave him alone. Every time she misses a meal or sleeps in late, the anxiety eats at him again. The relationship between Sep and his friend/employer Mario was really sweet & it was nice to know that Sep had someone looking out for him, even though I’m not sure he quite realised it at the time.

Aimed at teen and young adult readers, this is actually a quite scary novel – I found some of the gory descriptions quite nasty. There is a lot of death, and fairly explicit descriptions of those deaths – particularly that of animals, which could be upsetting to some, especially more sensitive kids but I can also imagine younger fans of horror and the paranormal lapping it up.

With thanks to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Hmmm. Clearly aimed at a young readership, nevertheless I accepted the invitation to read The Sacrifice Box enticed by the considerable hype about the book. First off, for me, there is some ambiguity about the location. Definitely on an island, New York City is mentioned but I was puzzled by references where price is mentioned in Pounds Sterling - £1.70 for example. Martin Stewart is a native of Glasgow, Scotland; why would he set his story in the USA?

Sep, Arkle, Mack, Lamb and Hadley. Five youngsters on their own rite of passage. Doing what young folk do, one long, hot summer when they stumble across a stone box hidden in the forest and for some reason they decide to make a sacrifice to the box, something pertinent to each of them, that should stay in the box forever, like an old, stuffed teddy-bear:

They make a pact:

never return to the box at night;
never visit it alone; 
never take back their offerings.

Four years later their ‘friendship’ has drifted, they have pretty much forgotten about the box, until…. someone has broken the pact… Horrifying events start to occur, their sacrifices come back to haunt them with terrifying consequences. Perhaps they weren’t the first children to come across the box…

SPOILER ALERT

There are moments of humour particularly with Arkle’s dialogue. But… I struggled to persevere with a plot that contains so much violence to animals. Zombie animals for goodness sake? Much of this I found most distasteful. Maybe I am too sensitive, but considering the book’s target audience, I don’t think so.

2.5 stars from me.

I tried, really tried to finish this book but I had to give up. Life is too short.
I did not read the horror that others have found. It was more Toy Story 2 1/2 with the wrong batteries.