Small Spaces (Small Spaces #1), by Katherine Arden ~ 5.0 Stars

Tags

Death of a parent, Greek Mythology, Horror, Juvenile Fiction, Mystery, Thriller

Thanks to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books For Young Readers, for providing an eBook in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: Available Now

218 Pages

Synopsis: Bestselling adult author of The Bear and the Nightingale, makes her middle grade debut with a creepy, spellbinding ghost story destined to become a classic. 

After suffering a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie only finds solace in books. So when she happens upon a crazed woman at the river threatening to throw a book into the water, Ollie doesn’t think—-she just acts, stealing the books and running away. As she begins to read the slender volume, Ollie discovers a chilling story about a girl named Beth, the two brothers who both loved her, and a peculiar deal made with “the smiling man,” a sinister specter who grants your most tightly held wish, but only for the ultimate price.

Ollie is captivating by the tale until her school trip the next day to Smoke Hollow, a local farm with a haunting history all its own. There she stumbles upon the graves of the very people she’s been reading about. Could it be the story about the smiling man is true? Ollie doesn’t have too long to think about the answer to that. On the way home, the bus breaks down, sending their teacher back to the farm for help. But the strange bus driver for the kids left behind in his care: “Best get moving. At nightfall they’ll come for the rest of you.” Nightfall is, indeed, fast descending, when Ollie’s previously broken digital wristwatch, a keepsake reminder of better times, begins a startling countdown and delivers a terrifying message: RUN.

Only Ollie and two of her classmates heed the bus driver’s warning. As the trio heads out into the woods—-bordered by a field of scarecrows that seem to be watching them—-the bus driver has one final piece of advice for Ollie and her friends: “Avoid large places. Keep to small.”

And with that, a deliciously creepy and hair-raising adventure begins.

I loved Katherine Arden’s YA/Adult Winternight Trilogy, but somehow I missed her middle-grade debut last year. I’m so glad I stumbled across Small Spaces on NetGalley, because it’s just as good as her fiction for older readers.

Both upper elementary-school age readers and adults will fall in love with Ollie, a young girl who a year after her mom’s death, is still trying to come to terms with it, mainly with the support of her dad and by escaping into books. Even though she’s withdrawn into herself, it’s obvious from the beginning that she’s a natural born leader. Brian and Coco, are also relatable, with Brian developing into so much more than the stereotypical bullying jock, and Coco displaying her own hidden strength under her outwardly fragile physical appearance. They wind up making quite the formidable team by the end of the book.

The story itself a wonderful blend of horror, Greek mythology, and coming-of-age. Although only 218 pages, it surprisingly manages to pack in quite a bit of material. It’s quick moving and I finished it in a bit over an hour. The ending was satisfying but it’s most likely this is going to be at the very least, a trilogy. The second book, Dead Voices, is coming out on August 27th, so lovers of horror and mythology have plenty of time to catch up!

 

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Containment (Sanctuary #2), by Caryn Lix ~ 5.0 Stars

Tags

Horror, Science Fiction, YA Fiction

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

Release Date: August 6th, 2019

496 Pages

Synopsis: They may have escaped Sanctuary, but Kenzie and her friends are far from safe.

Ex-Omnistellar prison guard Kenzie and her superpowered friends barely made it off Sanctuary alive. Now they’re stuck in a stolen alien ship with nowhere to go and no one to help them. Kenzie is desperate for a plan, but she doesn’t know who to trust anymore. Everyone has their own dark secrets: Omnistellar, her parents, even Cage. Worse still, she’s haunted by memories of the aliens who nearly tore her to shreds—-and forced her to accidentally kill one of the Sanctuary prisoners, Matt.

When Kenzie intercepts a radio communication suggesting more aliens are on the way, she knows there’s only one choice: They must turn themselves in to Omnistellar and destroy the ship before the aliens follow the signal straight to them. Because if the monstrous creatures who attacked Sanctuary reach Earth, then it’s game over for humanity.

What Kenzie doesn’t know is that the aliens aren’t the only ones on the hunt. Omnistellar has put a bounty on Kenzie’s head—-and the question is whether Omnistellar or the aliens get to her first.

Last year’s Sanctuary ended with a huge cliffhanger so I’ve been dying to get my hands on this sequel. After staying up until almost 2:00 in the morning reading Containment, I can honestly say that it’s even better than the previous book. 

While I enjoyed Sanctuary and thought it was action-packed, I did feel that character development was lacking. Well, Caryn Lix has certainly addressed that here. Not only does she fill in more details of Kenzie’s background, but she also fleshes out the backstories of some of the more involved secondary characters. The cast has also developed into a true United Nations of diversity, which I love. China, Egypt, Native American, Irish, and Russian cultures are represented here. And while those cultural differences are part of who the characters are, they don’t define them.

The plot itself picks up exactly where the previous book ended. The survivors who managed to scape the carnage on Sanctuary have been left utterly demoralized and traumatized. And now they’re being hunted by not only the monstrous aliens they barely managed to escape from, but also the sinister company known as Omnistellar who apparently has its own agenda for the survivors and the alien ship they’re flying. For a story where the actual monsters don’t appear until the last half of the book, the pace never slowed down one iota. Once I started this, I couldn’t put it down and finished it in less than 4 hours. The ending unfortunately is another cliffhanger, so I’m praying that the third book is no more than a year away because I’ve really become emotionally attached to Kenzie and her friends.

I highly recommend both Sanctuary and Containment for older teens and adults who love science fiction/horror along the line of the Alien movies. These pulse-pounding books are definitely not for the faint-hearted. Between the blood and gore, and the non-stop suspense, they are nightmare-inducing and will undoubtedly cause many a reader a sleepless night!

 

 

Slash, by Hunter Shea ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Release Date: October 10th, 2019

288 Pages

Synopsis: Five years after Ashley King survived the infamous Resort Massacre, she’s found hanging in her basement by her fiancé, Todd Matthews. She left behind clues as to what really happened that night, clues that might reveal the identity of the killer the press has called The Wraith.

With the help of his friends, Todd goes back to the crumbling Hayden Resort, a death-tinged ruin in the Catskill Mountains. What they find is a haunted history that’s been lying in wait for a fresh set of victims. The Wraith is back, and he’s nothing what they expected.

For the last couple of years I’ve come to rely on Hunter Shea for good, old-fashioned, fun, gory, horror and with Slash I was not disappointed. Shea put his expected unique twist on the familiar slasher trope and turned it into a one-sitting page-turner. Despite the book being under 300 pages, the characters are pretty well-developed, as is the plot. And there’s a fantastic twist regarding The Wraith in the last third of the book which I didn’t see coming at all. As with all his books, Slash doesn’t have a happily-ever-after ending, but with this being my third book by him, I wasn’t expecting one.

If you’re a horror fan and haven’t tried Hunter Shea, I highly recommend him. His books don’t require any deep thinking, they’re just pure entertainment. As for Slash, its publishing date of October 10th makes it a perfect Halloween read.

The Forbidden Door (Jane Hawk #4), by Dean Koontz ~ 5.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Science Fiction, Thriller

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

Release Date: Available Now

480 Pages

Synopsis: “We’re rewriting the play, and the play is this country, the world, the future. We break Jane’s heart, we’ll also break her will.”

She was one of the FBI’s top agents, until she became the nation’s most-wanted fugitive. Now Jane Hawk may be all that’s left between a free nation and its enslavement by a powerful secret society’s terrifying mind-control technology. She couldn’t save her husband, or the others whose lives have been destroyed, but equipped with superior tactical and survival skills—and the fury born of a broken heart and a hunger for justice—Jane has struck major blows against the insidious cabal.

But Jane’s enemies are about to hit back hard. If their best operatives can’t outrun her, they mean to bring her running to them, using her five-year-old son as bait. Jane knows there’s no underestimating their capabilities, but she must battle her way back across the country to the remote shelter where her boy is safely hidden…for now.

 As she moves resolutely forward, new threats begin to emerge: a growing number of brain-altered victims driven hopelessly, violently insane. With the madness spreading like a virus, the war between Jane and her enemies will become a fight for all their lives—against  the lethal terror unleashed from behind the forbidden door.

The Forbidden Door is Dean Koontz’s 4th Jane Hawk book and is another perfect addition to this exciting series that shows no sign of slowing down. I think I’ve mentioned this in my reviews of the first three books that one of the biggest strengths of this series is the characters. I have become so invested in what happens to Jane, her precocious son, and the others on her team, that I find myself holding my breath as they face danger after danger. And the villains are so despicable and evil, that I want them to all die as slowly and painfully as possible.

There’s not much more I can say that I haven’t already said in my other reviews except that in my opinion the Jane Hawk series is some of Dean Koontz’s best work in years! The Forbidden Door ends in another nail biting cliffhanger, so I’m eagerly anticipating The Night Window which is coming out in May. 

Creature, by Hunter Shea ~ 5.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Chronic Illness, Family Relationships, Horror, Psychological Thriller

Thanks to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: September 6th, 2018

256 Pages

Synopsis: The monsters live inside of Kate Woodson. Chronic pain and a host of autoimmune diseases have robbed her of a normal, happy life. Her husband Andrew’s surprise of their dream Maine lake cottage for the summer is the gift of a lifetime. It’s beautiful, remote, idyllic, a place to heal. But they are not alone. Something is in the woods, screeching in the darkness, banging on the house, leaving animals for dead. Just like her body, Kate’s cottage becomes her prison. She and Andrew must fight to survive the creature that lurks in the dead of night.

I’ve read quite a few books by Hunter Shea and I know I can always rely on his stories to be fun, totally insane horror mixed with subtly sly humor. Creature is completely different, in that it’s more character driven, and it’s one that will reach many readers at a deeply personal level.

For fans of his books, I have to caution the “monster” doesn’t really rear its head until the last third of the book. There’s obviously something going on as poor Kate and Andrew try to enjoy their getaway, but the usual blood and gore doesn’t come into play until the latter part of the book. Instead, the main focus is on Kate and her battles against several autoimmune disorders including Lupus and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome that have impacted her life in some truly horrible ways. The author writes Kate with such emotion I knew even before reading the afterward, that he must know someone who suffer from these debilitating illnesses. I have to be honest and say this isn’t the easiest read, especially if you struggle with chronic pain and illness. While Kate is far sicker than I am, I connected with her completely and there were several scenes where I was reduced to tears. Andrew is Kate’s soulmate in every sense of the word. He tries so hard to help his wife and his worry, frustration, and love are palpable. Their relationship in the face of such hardship is the backbone of this story.

The ending is not happily-ever-after, but then Hunter Shea’s books rarely are. This one was especially difficult for me though because I loved the characters so much and became personally invested in them. In my opinion, Creature is Hunter Shea’s best novel to date and that’s really saying something. If you choose to pick this up, make sure to read the afterward as it’ll make you understand how and why this story came about. 

The Sacrifice Box, by Martin Stewart (Blog Tour) ~ 4.0 Stars

Tags

Coming-of-age stories, Historical Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Thriller, YA Fiction

Thanks to a NetGalley and Viking Books for Young Readers for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Release Date: August 28th, 2018

368 Pages

Synopsis: A horror story about friendship, growing up, and finding a place in the world: Gremlins meets The Breakfast Club by way of Stephen King and Stranger Things.

1982, the summer before seventh grade. Five kids with nothing in common—Sep, Arkle, Hadley, Lamb, and Mack—become instant friends. On the last day of summer, they find a stone box buried in the forest, and each places an object inside to seal their friendship. And they make rules:

Never come to the box alone.

Never open it after dark.

Never take back your sacrifice.

1986, the summer before eleventh grade. The five haven’t spoken since that day in 1982. Sep has gone through the past four years alone and plans to escape to boarding school. But strange things are happening—mirrors are breaking unexpectedly, electricity is flickering in and out, and people are coming down with inexplicable physical ailments. 

Someone has broken the rules. And it seems the five committed more than objects to the box’s ancient stone—they gave it their deepest secrets and darkest fears, and now these are being returned in a flood of shambling corpses, murderous toys, and undead pets. The gang must reunite in an attempt to discover the secrets of the sacrifice box—and Sep might be the only one who can stem its tide of evil before it’s too late.

Before I give you my review of The Sacrifice Box, I have to give animal lovers fair warning: A LOT of them die in this book, and in some pretty gruesome ways. Humans do as well, but let’s be honest, it’s our fuzzy four-legged friends that we really hate seeing perish. What? I’m just saying what we’re all thinking! Anyway, if you have a problem with books like Stephen King’s Pet Semetary, then this twisted tale may not be for you.

 

Okay, now for the nitty gritty. As the premise states, The Sacrifice Box is part Stranger Things, part Breakfast Club, part Gremlins, and definitely has a mix of Stephen King—specifically Stand By Me, It, and Pet Semetary. This could have been a red hot derivative mess, but Martin Stewart takes all these elements and skillfully blends them into a nightmarish concoction that captured my attention so thoroughly I finished it in one sitting.

 

There were two issues I had which prevented me from giving this 5 stars. While I loved the main character September “Sep” Hope, I didn’t find the other characters quite as well rounded. There’s a lot of action going on in this story and it flips between different timelines, and I think that because there was so much happening, the characters’ development suffered a bit. My other problem was with the ending which I felt was too rushed and left a few loose ends. Because I’m a reader who likes her books to be neatly tied up, especially when they’re standalones, I was a little frustrated by this.

Despite these issues, I absolutely loved The Sacrifice Box and I think fans of hardcore horror will really enjoy this. The book is marketed as YA, but I would strongly recommend it for 16 year-olds and up due to all the blood, gore, and overall scariness of it. It’s an entertaining mix of terrifying horror and a poignant coming-of-age story that looks at love, friendship, and the secrets we all keep hidden deep within ourselves.

 

You’re probably wondering “Kim! What’s up with the creepy gifs?” Well, if you choose to read this let’s just say you might want to lock up any stuffed animals and dolls in the house. And you might want to keep an eye on your pets. Um, and be wary of birds, squirrels, deer, and…Just don’t go outside until you’ve recovered from reading this book!

About the Author:

Martin Stewart has previously worked as an English teacher, university lecturer, barman, recycling technician, and golf caddy. A native of Glasgow, he now lives on Scotland’s west coast with his wife, baby daughter, and a very big dog. He enjoys cooking with eggs, running on the beach, re-watching his favorite films, and buying books to feed his to-be-read pile. 

You can also find him here:

Twitter – https://mobile.twitter.com/martinjstewart

Goodreads – https://goodreads.com/author/show/238277.Martin_Stewart

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/martin_j_stewart/

 

 

Sanctuary (Sanctuary #1), by Caryn Lix ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Horror, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: Available Now

480 Pages

Synopsis: Kenzie holds one truth above all else: the company is everything.

As a citizen of Omnistellar Concepts, the most powerful corporation in the solar system. Kenzie has trained her entire life for one goal: to become an elite guard on Sanctuary, Omnistellar’s space prison for superpowered teens too dangerous for Earth. As a junior guard, she’s excited to prove herself to her company—and that means sacrificing anything that won’t propel her forward.

But then a routine drill goes sideways and Kenzie is taken hostage by rioting prisoners. 

At first, she’s confident that her commanding officer—who also happens to be her mother—will stop at nothing to secure her freedom. Yet it soon becomes clear that her mother is more concerned with sticking to Omnistellar protocol than she is with getting Kenzie out safely.

As Kenzie forms her own plan to escape, she doesn’t realize there’s a more sinister threat looming, something ancient and evil that has clawed its way into Sanctuary from the vacuum of space. And Kenzie might have to team up with her captors to survive—all while beginning to suspect there’s a darker side to the Omnistellar she knows.

I know it’s only July, but without a doubt, Sanctuary is going to be one of my favorite books of 2018! I started this yesterday afternoon, and finished it about 11:30 p.m. I swear, I was so stressed out that by the end of the book I almost started biting my fingernails, a bad habit I only recently stopped.

The reason why I didn’t give this a full 5 stars is because there’s insta-love between Kenzie and Cage (a personal pet peeve of mine), the leader of the superpowered teens and, except for Kenzie, I would have liked to see a little more character development. However, with all the action taking place I found I didn’t mind these two issues as much as I usually would. I really emphasized Kenzie as she struggled to accept that the world she grew up in isn’t as benevolent and protective as she thought, and that people with powers aren’t the monsters that she’s been led to believe. The story is filled with tension as the teens discover they’re facing an unimaginable horror, and that they’ll have to work together if they’re to survive. The fight scenes are bloody and gory and left me on the edge of my seat. The ending left me with some questions, but I didn’t mind as there is going to be a sequel.

Overall, Sanctuary is a spectacular debut by Caryn Lix. I think because of the violence, I’d recommend this to ages 13 and up. The book is chock full of action, horror and suspense, and it most definitely lives up to its exciting premise. I’m eagerly anticipating the sequel!

 

Baby Teeth, by Zoje Stage ~ 4.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Dysfunctional Families, Horror, Mental Illness, Psychological Thriller

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: July 17th, 2018

320 Pages

Synopsis: Sweetness can be deceptive.

Meet Hanna.

She’s the sweet-but-silent angel in the adoring eyes of her Daddy. He’s the only person who understands her, and all Hanna wants is to live happily ever after with him. But Mommy stands in her way, and she’ll try any trick she can think of to get rid of, ideally for good.

Meet Suzette.

She loves her daughter, really, but after years of expulsions and strained home schooling, her precarious health and sanity are weakening day by day. As Hanna’s tricks become increasingly sophisticated, and Suzette’s husband remains blind to the failing family dynamics, Suzette starts to fear that there’s something seriously wrong, and that maybe home isn’t the best place for their baby girl after all.

 Let me say from the onset that Baby Teeth will not be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s dark and disturbing, and when I finished it last night I found myself unable to sleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

The 3rd person narrative alternates between Hanna and her mother. Hanna is a seven-year-old precocious child, who presents two completely different sides to her parents, Suzette and Alex. With her father, she’s a sweet little angel, but with her mother, she increasingly demonstrates how much she resents and hates her. While seeing Hanna’s perspective adds to the intensity of the story, there are some inconsistencies with her thinking and actions. As each of her chapters begins, she sounds and acts like the seven-year-old she is, albeit a disturbingly creepy one. But then her mental thoughts turn into sophisticated ones that come across as way too adult, even for an exceptionally bright child. This aside, the author crafts her into at times a sympathetic figure, but more often than not, a menacing one who scared the heck out of me.

While Suzette isn’t perfect by any means, I felt a lot of empathy for her. She suffers from a particularly nasty case of Crohn’s disease, and this coupled with her surviving a childhood filled with neglect, had me forming an instant connection with her, even when I didn’t agree with her responses to Hanna. She loves her daughter yet is increasingly afraid of her. When you add in anger and resentment, you have a mother who’s not only at war with her daughter, but also herself.

I didn’t care for Alex in the beginning as he’s written as your stereotypical father who’s clueless and in denial about his daughter, but about halfway in, he starts to realize that Suzanne may be right about Hanna. Watching him come to grips with the truth, trying to protect his wife while still loving his daughter, adds another layer to this twisted yet  captivating tale.

The ending wasn’t a huge surprise, but it was one of several that I had envisioned and I found it believable. Overall, I enjoyed(?) Baby Teeth and I’m impressed with Zoje Stage’s debut. It’s an unflinching look at at childhood mental illness and a couple’s difficulty of finding help and coping with it. It’s a riveting domestic thriller with horror added in which should appeal to fans of books such as Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin.

The Life And Death Parade, by Eliza Wass ~ 1.0 Stars

Tags

Fantasy, Horror, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Disney-Hyperion for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: Available Now

256 Pages

Synopsis: One year ago, Kitty’s boyfriend Nikki Bramley visited a psychic who told him he had no future. Now, he’s dead. With the Bramley family grieving in separate corners of their house, Kitty sets out to find the psychic who read Nikki his fate. Instead she finds Roan, an enigmatic boy posing as a medium who belongs to the Life and Death Parade—a group of supposed charlatans that explore, and exploit, the thin veil between this world and the next. A group  whose members include the psychic…and Kitty’s late mother. Desperate to learn more about the group and their connection to Nikki, Kitty convinces Roan to return to the Bramley house with her and secures a position for him within the household. Roan quickly ingratiates himself with the Bramleys, and soon enough it seems like everyone is ready to move on. Kitty, however, increasingly suspects Roan knows more about Nikki than he’s letting on. And when they finally locate the Life and Death Parade, and the psychic who made that fateful prophecy to Nikki, Kitty uncovers a secret about Roan that changes everything. From rising star Eliza Wass comes a sophisticated, mesmerizing meditation on the depths of grief and the magic of faith. After all, it only works if you believe it.

As you can tell by my rating, The Life and Death Parade just wasn’t for me. I enjoyed the author’s previous book The Cresswell Plot and I was so excited about this when I first read the premise, but instead, it took me almost two weeks to push myself through it and at 256 pages, that’s not good.

The characters are all very one-dimensional and try as I might I was unsuccessful in connecting with any of them. Kitty and Nikki’s romance didn’t come across as believable and her love/hate relationship with Roan was annoying. While I liked the setting, the plot was sort of all over the place, leaving me confused much of the time. Adding to my confusion was that the dialogue just melded together, so half the time I didn’t even know which character was speaking. There were a couple of twists near the end that piqued my interest, but by then it was too little too late.

What I found so frustrating is that I think the concept of The Life and Death Parade had loads of potential. As is often the case with a book I wind up disillusioned with, I can’t help but wonder where the editor was. Although this was a disappointment for me, there are several glowing reviews on Goodreads, so as always, I encourage you to check them out if the premise intrigues you.

Glimpse, by Jonathan Maberry ~ 3.5 Stars

Tags

Addiction, Adult Fiction, Horror, Supernatural

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: March 27th, 2018

352 Pages

Synopsis: How far would you be willing to go to save those you love?

Rain is a young woman trying to rebuild herself after years of drug addiction and abuse. Ten years ago, at the age of sixteen, she gave up her baby after the father , her first love, dies in Iraq. Now, three years clean and on the way to a job interview, Rain borrows a pair of reading glasses from an old lady on a Brooklyn train. The lenses are cracked and through the crack she catches a glimpse of a little boy running and screaming. The boy looks so much like Rain’s dead lover. Like their son must look like now.

Rain realizes that the glasses give her quick glimpses of her lost son Dylan, who needs her to find him. Dylan is important to our damaged, hopeless world. But he’s in terrible trouble because evil creatures—-the Shadow People—-are trying to corrupt and destroy him. If Dylan dies, then hope dies. 

But how does a recovering junkie fight supernatural monsters? And how far will one woman go to saver her lost son?

One of my favorite horror trilogies is Jonathan Maberry’s Pine Deep, and I also have quite enjoyed his long running Joe Ledger series. So when I saw the standalone novel Glimpse, I was quite excited. After finishing it last night, I don’t think it’s one of his best novels, but I’m still glad I read it.

Part of the problem is that this is a horror story, but it takes quite awhile for things to get going. I don’t mind slow burning plots most of the time, but in this case it just seemed to take too long for the excitement to build. 

Another issue for me was with these two characters, Gay Bob and Straight Bob. I’m not sure why Maberry chose to bestow upon them these unfortunate monikers, but it was annoying and distracting and I know other reviewers have commented on this as well, so I know it’s not just me.

There were parts of the book I loved. Rain, the main character is complex yet entirely empathetic, especially when more of her background is revealed. She’s coping with guilt, grief, memory loss and trying to recover from drug addiction, so when she’s first introduced she’s in a very fragile state. Yet she’s determined and doesn’t run from this supernatural fight. And Monk, the tattooed, psychic private investigator, Rain teams up with, in my opinion deserves a series of his own. And then there’s the bogeyman of the story who is such a nasty piece of work that most of the characters won’t even use his name. He was a fantastic villain. 

To me, Glimpse was reminiscent of Stephen King’s Dr. Sleep and Joe Hill’s NOS4RT2, so if you’re a fan of these, you may want to try this. Despite the few issues I had with it, there was still a good part of the book I enjoyed. The story is complex and the characters are memorable and although it’s technically a standalone, I could see it being developed into a series and if that did happen, I’d definitely keep reading.