Horseman: A Tale of Sleepy Hollow, By Christina Henry ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Assault, Attempted Rape, Child Murders, Historical Fiction, Horror, LGBTQ, Mystery, Suspense, YA/Adult Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Books for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: September 28th, 2021

320 Pages

Synopsis: In this atmospheric, terrifying novel that draws strongly from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the author of Alice and The Girl in Red works her trademark magic, spinning an engaging and frightening new story from a classic tale.

Everyone in Sleepy Hollow knows about the Horseman, but no one really believes in him. Not even Ben Van Brunt’s grandfather, Brom Bones, who was there when it was said the Horseman chased the upstart Crane out of town. Brom says that’s just legend, the village gossips talking.

Twenty years after those storied events, the village is a quiet place. Fourteen-year-old Ben loves to play Sleepy Hollow boys, reenacting the events Brom once lived through. But then Ben and a friend stumble across the headless body of a child in the woods near the village, and the sinister discovery makes Ben question everything the adults in Sleepy Hollow have ever said. Could the Horseman be real after all? Or does something even more sinister stalk the woods. (Goodreads)

Before I even begin my review of Horseman, we need to address the cover. How gorgeous is that? Aren’t your fingers just reaching for it under their own volition? Well, I’m happy to say that the actual story just about lives up to that perfect cover.

I took me a few chapters to warm up to fourteen-year-old Ben, who is born female, but knows in his heart he’s a boy, and insists on dressing and acting like one. This puts him in direct conflict with his prim and proper grandmother, Katrina who has raised Ben along with Brom Bones after the death of his parents when he was young. I kept trying to remind myself of his age and the fact of his fighting against the societal norms of the time period, but at first his combativeness got on my nerves. As the story progresses I warmed up to him and I love the close relationship he shares with Brom. The relationship between Ben and Katrina eventually develops into one of open communication and mutual understanding, which is a welcome change to the hurtful arguing they both engaged in at the beginning. In addition to Ben, I think all the characters here are ingeniously written, especially the ones that readers of the original tale of Sleepy Hollow are familiar with. Katrina and Brom are particularly well written and while flawed, they’re also likable and relatable.

The story itself is quite dark and at times graphically bloody, but it’s an imaginative continuation of the original story that pays homage to Washington Irving’s classic, yet takes its own unique and unexpected path, especially in regards to the Headless Horseman mythology and the mystery of what happened to schoolmaster Ichabod Crane. I absolutely loved the ending and thought it the perfect way to wrap everything up.

Mixed in with the mythology are some real life issues including three child murders, Ben’s aforementioned transgenderism, a violent physical attack on him, and an attempted rape. Because of these scenes and a few other gory ones, I would recommend this for ages 16 and up. I’ve read a couple of Christina Henry’s previous books which I’ve enjoyed, but I believe Horseman is her best yet. As it’s coming out on September 28th, this really is the perfect horror tale for the Halloween season.

The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess, By Andy Marino ~ 3.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Science Fiction, Substance Abuse, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Redhook for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: September 28th, 2021

304 Pages

Synopsis: From a thrilling new voice in horror, Andy Marino, comes a haunting tale of a woman whose life begins to unravel after a home invasion. She’s told she killed the intruder. But she can’t remember, and no one believes her…

Sydney’s spent years burying her past and building a better life for herself and her eleven-year old son. A respectable marketing job, a house with reclaimed and sustainable furniture, and a boyfriend who loves her son and accepts her, flaws and all. But when she opens her front door, and a masked intruder knocks her briefly unconscious, everything begins to unravel. 

She wakes in the hospital and tells a harrowing story of escape. Of dashing out a broken window. Of running into her neighbors’ yard and calling the police. What the cops tell her is that she can no longer trust her memories. Because they say that not only is the intruder lying dead in her guest room, but he’s been murdered in a way that seems intimately personal. 

When she returns home, Sydney can’t shake the deep darkness that hides in every corner. There’s an unnatural whisper in her ear, urging her back to old addictions. And as her memories slowly return, she begins to fear that her new life was never built on solid ground-and that the secrets buried beneath will change everything. (Goodreads)

The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess is a very different type of horror story which has left me torn over how I feel about it. I liked Sydney because she’s the poster child of an unreliable character and she kept me guessing through most of the book. A former drug addict, she’s turned her life around and seemingly has a wonderful life now with her loving, supportive boyfriend and her sweet eleven-year-old son Danny. But then she walks in on a home intruder and her life quickly begins to spiral out of control, and as this happened I increasingly felt as though I had fallen down a rabbit hole. There are several nonlinear time jumps that I found jarring and confusing, and I wound up more than once, having to go back a page and reread the section I just finished. The storyline also took a strange turn to science fiction which I personally didn’t care for, and I hated the ending although some readers may like the unexpectedness of it. The reason why this is getting 3.0 stars from me is because I really did like Sydney and her determination to forge a better life for herself and Danny, and I appreciated the uniqueness of story, but these weren’t enough to completely save the book for me. Overall, The Seven Visitations of Sydney Burgess had some bright spots, but didn’t quite live up to its potential. 

My Heart is a Chainsaw, By Stephen Graham Jones ~ 3.5 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Attempted Suicide, Dysfunctional Families, Gentrification, Horror, Incest, Mystery, Native American Culture, Self-harm, Substance Abuse, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery/Saga Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: August 31st, 2021

416 Pages

Synopsis: In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for in this latest novel from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.

“Some girls just don’t know how to die…”

Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in My Heart Is a Chainsaw, written by the author of The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones, called “a literary master” by National Book Award winner Tananarive Due and “one of our most talented living writers” by Tommy Orange.

Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw “a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre.” On the surface is a story of murder in small-town America. But beneath is its beating heart: a biting critique of American colonialism, Indigenous displacement, and gentrification, and a heartbreaking portrait of a broken young girl who uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life.

Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.

Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges…a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph. (Goodreads)

Jones’ The Only Good Indians was one of my favorite horror novels of 2020 so I’ve been eagerly looking forward to diving into My Heart is a Chainsaw, especially when I saw the cover and read the premise. After spending the better part of the week making my way through it, I have to be honest and say this is one of the toughest books I’ve had to rate and review since I began this blog seven years ago.

The first chapter was fantastic and immediately hooked me, but then for about 60% of the novel, the story stuttered along at an excruciatingly slow pace. In fact, it was so bad that at certain points I have to be honest and say I skimmed a few sections, which I hate doing because I feel like I’m cheating. The chapters are overly long third person expository-style and are only broken up by Jade’s first person “Slasher 101” papers she’s writing for extra credit for her history class. Thank goodness for these breaks from the otherwise tediousness of the story, because I think they’re the only thing that kept me going. You see,  seventeen-year-old, half-Indian, Jade, is a Slasher expert, and her papers are full of fun facts and Easter eggs about film franchises such as Scream, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and more. She’s also convinced that there’s some sort real life Slasher that’s materialized in her small Idaho town, and that it’s tied somehow to the new gentrified development across the lake. Jade is a tough character to get a hold of and I spent a good portion of the story flipping back and forth on how I felt about her. She’s the poster child of unreliable characters, yet there’s something uniquely vulnerable about her that makes you loathe to turn away without discovering  what lies underneath her puzzling and unlikable exterior. When the truth is finally revealed, it’s as horrifying as the overarching plot itself, and I found myself firmly in her corner rooting for her.

As slow as the the first half of the book is, shortly past the midway point the story takes off like a bat out of Hell and all the teasing little plot points and what seems like an endless amount of minutiae, come together in a bloody and gory crescendo of mayhem and carnage that left me breathlessly wondering who was the killer and who was going to be the Final Girl. If you asked me when I was halfway through the book what I thought, I would have replied that I was disappointed and was probably only going to give it 2.5 stars. But that all changed because of those last 160 or so pages. I still can’t say I loved My Heart is a Chainsaw, but I can say that Stephen Graham Jones being called “the Jordan Peele of horror literature” is pretty on point. I finished it three days ago and it’s still interfering with my sleep. If you decide to give this a try, my advice would be to expect the slow burn of all slow burns. But if you have the time and patience the payoff is worth it…mostly.

The Book of Accidents, By Chuck Wendig ~ 5.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Horror, Science Fiction, Serial Killers, Social Issues, Supernatural Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: July 20th, 2021

544 Pages

Synopsis: A family returns to their hometown—and to the dark past that haunts them still—in this masterpiece of literary horror by the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers

Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there.

Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures.

Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania.

Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver.

And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic.

This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family—and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this battle: their love for one another. (Goodreads)

I’m thrilled to say my 2021 winning streak of scoring outstanding horror books continues with Chuck Wendig’s The Book of Accidents. There are a lot of reviewers comparing this to classic Stephen King, and they’re not wrong. The Book of Accidents shares many elements from vintage King books; strong, complex characters each hiding secrets and battling inner demons, a creative and genre-defying storyline, heart-pounding action, and thought-provoking social commentary.  But make no mistake, it stands entirely on its own merits.

The majority of the story revolves around Nate, Maddie, and their teenage son Oliver, whose empathetic nature is far more advanced than his loving parents realize. Maddie is a strong, bad-ass sculptor, whose colorful language is startling yet funny at the same time. She has a fierce love and devotion for her son and husband and will do anything to protect them. And Nate, well, he’s a survivor of an abusive father, and he’s still dealing with the after effects from his traumatic childhood. They all form a tight family unit which is what they need to fight the unknown evil that’s facing them. 

The story itself is gripping with shocking twists that I didn’t see coming. It’s over 500 pages, yet it’s so tightly written that my full attention was completely engaged from the moment I started reading. Horror, science fiction, and the supernatural are all skillfully blended with social issues like child abuse and toxic masculinity. 

In the end, The Book of Accidents is a magnificent tour de force about the power of love and the triumph of good over evil. In a year that’s giving horror fans several magnificent reads, I guarantee this will be on the top of many readers’ favorites lists. If you enjoy these genres I highly recommend you either preorder this now, or put in a request to your library!

The Final Girl Support Group, By Grady Hendrix ~ 5.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Horror, LGBTQ, Mystery, Serial Killers, Slasher Movies, Thriller

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: July 13th, 2021

352 Pages

Synopsis: A fast-paced, thrilling horror novel that follows a group of heroines to die for, from the brilliant New York Times bestselling author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires.

In horror movies, the final girl is the one who’s left standing when the credits roll. The one who fought back, defeated,the killer, and avenged her friends. The one who emerges bloodied but victorious. But after the sirens fade and the audience moves on, what happens to her?

Lynette Tarkington is a real-life final girl, who survived a massacre twenty-two years ago and it has defined every day of her life since. And she’s not alone. For more than a decade she’s been meeting with five other actual final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives together, piece by piece. That is until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynette’s worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again, piece by piece.

But the one thing about these final girls is that they have each other now, and no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never give up. (Goodreads)

Remember how popular “slasher” movies were in the late 70s, 80s and 90s? Well picture a world where there are real life Final Girls, and those movies were based on the horrifying events that occurred in their lives. This is the premise of Grady Hendrix’s clever, highly entertaining The Final Girl Support Group. It’s a wild ride right from the beginning, and although it took me a little while to warm up to Lynette, once I learned more of her backstory I completely understood her over-the-top actions.

While the subject matter is admittedly dark, this has all of Hendrix’s trademark black humor as well. In between the chills, thrills, and yes, chuckles, are some thoughtful looks at how our society not only treats victims of violence, but the perpetrators themselves. There are fans of these monsters which at first seem unbelievable until you remember the devoted worshipers serial killers like Ted Bundy and Charles Manson had.

In this twisted tale you’ve got six traumatized survivors who for much of the book, aren’t exactly supporting each other, despite the title. They’re all dealing with the physical and emotional scars that their ordeals have left them in different ways which doesn’t leave much left over for anyone else. I spent a good portion of the book second guessing whether Lynette or one of her fellow survivors had finally gone over the edge and turned monster here, and there were enough twists to make my poor head spin. The last few climactic chapters are a kick-ass display of sisterhood and the ending was brilliant!

The Final Girl Support Group is perfect for horror fans looking for a fresh take on the slasher horror sub-genre. And unsurprisingly, it’s already been scooped up by Annapurna Pictures who will be developing it into a tv series. I can’t wait to see what they do with this story. Meanwhile, if you’re a fan of film franchises like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, and Scream, you’re going to want to read this book. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed!

Chasing the Boogeyman, By Richard Chizmar ~ 5.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Horror, Metafiction, Mystery, Serial Killers, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: August 17th, 2021

336 Pages

Synopsis: The New York Times bestselling coauthor of Gwendy’s Button Box brings his signature “ thrilling page-turning” (Michael Koryta, author of How It Happened) prose to this story of small-town evil that combines the storytelling of Stephen King with the true-crime suspense of Michelle McNamara.

In the summer of 1988, the mutilated bodies of several missing girls begin to turn up in a small Maryland town. The grisly evidence leads police to the terrifying assumption that a serial killer is on the loose in the quiet suburb. But soon a rumor begins to spread that the evil stalking local teens is not entirely human. Law enforcement, as well as members of the FBI, are certain that the is a living, breathing madman—and he’s playing games with them. For a once peaceful community, trapped in the depths of paranoia and suspicion, it feels like a nightmare that will never end.

Recent college graduate, Richard Chizmar, returns to his hometown just as a curfew is enacted, and a neighborhood watch is formed. In the midst of preparing for his wedding and embarking on a writing career, he soon finds himself thrust into the real-life horror story. Inspired by the terrifying events, Richard writes a personal account of the serial killer’s reign of terror, unaware that these events will continue to haunt him for years to come.

A clever, terrifying, and heartrending work of metafiction, Chasing the Boogeyman is the ultimate marriage between horror fiction and true crime. Chizmar’s “brilliant…absolutely fascinating, totally compelling, and immediately poignant” (C.J. Tudor, New York Times bestselling author) writing is on full display in this truly unique novel that will haunt you long after you turn the final page. (Goodreads)

I loved Gwendy’s Button Box, which Richard Chizmar coauthored with Stephen King so as soon as I saw Chasing the Boogeyman on NetGalley, I immediately requested it. It’s the second metafiction novel I’ve read this week, and it’s another that’s knocked my socks off!

The majority of the story is fiction but I had to continually remind myself of that the entire time I was reading. When you first start this it actually seems more like an autobiographical and true crime novel and that’s because it actually is. Edgewood, Maryland is a real small town in Maryland, and while it has the same issues that plague many communities across the country, overall it’s a picturesque slice of Americana. You can feel the love that Chizmar still has for it and its residents and his descriptive writing immediately drew me in with it’s nostalgic look at his boyhood home and family and friends. The horror starts with some mysterious and creepy events that actually occurred between 1986 and 1990. Using this as a jumping off point, the author than turns this into a haunting, supernatural tale unlike any other I’ve read. What transpires is unreal, mesmerizing, and utterly mind blowing and adding to this are the photos included at the end of each chapter. An absolute must read at the end of the book is the author’s note where Chizmar goes into detail regarding how and why he decided to write this, and the ingenious way the photos were created.

In the end, Chasing the Boogeyman is simply a brilliant piece of storytelling. I guarantee it will be one of this summer’s most talked about books, and I HIGHLY recommend it for fans of authors like Stephen King and Robert McCammon, and of the true crime and horror genres.

The Last House On Needless Street, By Catriona Ward ~ 5.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Child Abuse, Child Murders, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Horror, Mystery, Serial Killers, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: (US) September 28th, 2021, (UK) Available Now

352 Pages

Synopsis: In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods, lives a family of three.

A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after the last time.

A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory.

And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible.

An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.

Rarely has just reading the synopsis for a book made me so desperate to get my hands on it, and rarely have I begun a story with certain preconceived notions, only to be taken on a journey so profound it moved me to tears. As usual, I will endeavor not to give away too many spoilers, but there are several themes that I feel I must provide warnings about. These include: Serial killers, child abuse (physical and psychological), child murder, and Dissociative Identity Disorder. As you can guess, The Last House on Needless Street will not be for everyone. It deals with extremely difficult subject matter, and I admit I found myself numerous times wanting to take a break, yet at the same time I couldn’t tear myself away. I never would have guessed from the opening chapter, where this tale would end. It starts as a sort of gothic-like horror, with what seems to be a little magic realism mixed in, courtesy of Olivia, the Bible reading cat, but what this turns into is a deeply personal exploration of the awe-inspiring power of the mind to adapt and survive truly unimaginable circumstances. In her afterward, Catriona Ward talks about how The Last House On Needless Street came to life, and the research she did into DID. Even without reading that, it’s obvious she did her due diligence, but it gives further insight. This latest offering from Ward is receiving well-deserved, widespread accolades from bestselling authors like Stephen King, Joe Hill, Joanne Harris, Alex North, and Sarah Pinborough, and the film rights have already been scooped up by Andy Serkis’ production company, Imaginarium Productions. All I can say is this is an instance where you can believe the hype. As I stated above, it won’t be for everyone, but if you decide to try it, you’re in for an utterly heartbreaking yet in the end, heartwarming story with memorable characters that I guarantee you’ll never forget.

Paradox Lake, By Vincent Zandri ~ 3.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Rape, Rape of a Child, Serial Killers

Thanks to Edelweiss and Oceanview Publishing for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review review.

Release Date: May 18th, 2021

336 Pages

Synopsis: Sculptor and single mom, Rose Conley, is haunted by her tragic past and anxious about he uncertain future. She needs to get away from it all. On sabbatical from the college where she teaches art, she and her daughter rent a house for three months in the Adirondack lakeside community of Paradox.

Rose desperately needs time alone with her twelve-year-old daughter before the teenage years hit. In the wake of the premature deaths of her oldest daughter, Allison, and her husband, Charlie, Rose wants nothing more than to nurture Anna every moment she can.

But idyllic Paradox Lake transforms into a nightmare when a monster from the past, invades Rose’s retreat—and targets her daughter for his own special brand of horror.

I really loved the premise of Paradox Lake, but it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. For a horror story, I thought the first 40% of the book dragged and I was getting impatient for some action to kick in. This was made worse by the awkward dialogue between Rose and twelve-year-old Anna whose mother-daughter relationship I just didn’t find believable. It seems to be one those cases of a male writer attempting to the capture the POV of a female and not succeeding, and young Anna’s voice was even less believable. What Vincent Zandri does incredibly well here though, is conveying a monstrous evil that is so palpable it was actually quite terrifying, and he uses the background of Little Red Riding Hood creatively and with chilling effect. There are some scenes that are graphically gory and made even me cringe (which takes a lot), and the ending was completely crackers in pure slasher fashion. Because of this I’m giving Paradox Lake 3 Stars. I want to give fair warning though that this has several scenes which could trigger certain readers including: Rape, rape of a child, and the murder of a child. For me, while this wasn’t a perfect read, there was enough there that has me interested in checking out some of Zandri’s other books.

Goblin, By Josh Malerman ~ 3.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: April 6th, 2020

400 Pages

Synopsis: 

A MAN IN SLICES: A young man wants to prove to his long distance girlfriend that they have “legendary love,” better than Vincent Van Gogh, so he sends her more body parts than just his earring the mail.

KAMP: A man so horrified of encountering a ghost that he sets up “ghost traps” all over his apartment, desperate to catch one before it can sneak up on him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HUNTER!: Big game hunter Neal Nash, leaves his own meat-themed birthday bash, to go hunting for Goblin’s hallowed (and protected) Great Owl, but the North Woods are unkind at night.

PRESTO: In the pages of Presto magazine, a young boy reads that his favorite magician, Roman Emperor, is coming to town. Problem is, Pete doesn’t know that Emperor’s magic is real, and his latest trick involves audience participation…a little boy volunteer.

A MIX-UP AT THE ZOO: Dirk Rogers works at both the Goblin Slaughterhouse and the Goblin Zoo, but the workload is really getting to him. Will he be able to separate the two jobs on the night he finally breaks down, or will the slaughterhouse and zoo overlap in his cracked, dark mind?

THE HEDGES: A young girl finally reaches the end of Goblin’s biggest tourist attraction, The Hedges. But what she finds there sparks a mad chase between the owner of The Hedges and the Goblin Police, through the streets of the rainy city, and into the terrible North Woods.

The author of Bird Box and Mad Black Wheel welcomes you to Goblin. May your night there be wet with rain, breathless with adventure, and filled with fright. (Goodreads)

Argh! I am so frustrated! I was a little disappointed in Malerman’s A House at the Bottom of the Lake, but really enjoyed Bird Box, and I was quite intrigued by the premise of Goblin, so I decided to give it a shot. The creepy prologue raised the hair on the back of my neck, so I started getting quite excited. Alas, that was the best part of the book. Going by each novella, they all start with interesting premises, but the endings are either confusing or anticlimactic. The characters were fairly decent, and I really loved Pete in Presto, but the little girl, Margot, in The Hedges, was absolutely dreadful. A couple of the stories tie into the backstory of the town, but the others sort of were thrown in there on their own. While I like how the epilogue wraps up what had begun in the prologue, there are plenty of unanswered questions at the end which has added to my frustration. This wasn’t a terrible read by any means, but neither was it a fulfilling one.

Near the Bone, By Christina Henry ~ 3.5 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Horror, Implied Rape, Mystery, Physical & Emotional Abuse, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: April 13th, 2021

336 Pages

Synopsis: Mattie can’t remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods she realizes they’re not alone after all.

There’s something in the woods that wasn’t there before, something that makes strange cries in the night, something with sharp teeth and claws.

When three strangers appear on the mountaintop looking for a creature in the woods, Mattie knows their presence will anger William. Terrible things happen when William is angry. (Goodreads)

Let me begin by warning that Near the Bone isn’t going to be for everyone. It has some graphic gory scenes, as you would expect from a creature horror tale, but even more disturbing are the instances of physical abuse that Mattie suffers at the hands of William. These could definitely be triggering for some readers, so I wanted to put that front and center. That said, the majority of Near the Bone is a fantastic page-turner, and I found myself surprised at quite a few revelations. The best part is Mattie herself, from her shocking backstory (which once revealed was not at all what I expected), to the enjoyable development of her character from a terrified, traumatized victim, to a young woman who finds her inner strength under unimaginable circumstances. Unfortunately the ending didn’t live up to the rest of the book though. I was hoping for some sort of explanation regarding the monster and where it came from, and why after all the years that Mattie and William had lived on the mountain, it didn’t make an appearance until now, but alas, these questions were left unanswered. There was also something with a family member of Mattie’s which was brought up several times, only to be dropped, which really irked me. And finally, there was something about William that was casually tossed in near the end, that I thought was unnecessary. I’m frustrated, because if it weren’t for these plot holes I probably would have given Near the Bone a higher rating. I would still recommend this for creature horror fans though. It’s an engrossing and quick read and Mattie will capture your heart and have you rooting for her.