Summer Sons, By Lee Mandelo ~ 3.5 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Coping With Loss and Grief, Horror, LGBTQ Relationships, Mystery, Southern Gothic, Talk of Suicide, Trauma

Thanks to NetGalley and Tordotcom for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: September 28th, 2021

384 Pages

Synopsis: Lee Mandelo’s debut Summer Sons is a sweltering, queer Southern Gothic that crosses Appalachian street racing with academic intrigue, all haunted by a hungry ghost.

Andrew and Eddie did everything together, best friends bonded more deeply than brothers, until Eddie left Andrew behind to start his graduate program at Vanderbilt. Six months later, only days before Andrew was to join him in Nashville, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide. He leaves Andrew a horrible inheritance: a roommate he doesn’t know, friends he never asked for, and a gruesome phantom that hungers for him.

As Andrew searches for the truth of Eddie’s death, he uncovers the lies and secrets left behind by the person he trusted most, discovering a family history soaked in blood and death. Whirling between the backstabbing academic world where Eddie spent his days and the circle of hot boys, fast cars, and hard drugs that ruled Eddie’s nights, the walls Andrew has built against the world begin to crumble.

And there is something awful lurking, waiting for those walls to fall. (Goodreads)

I want to say at the onset that Summer Sons is receiving mostly rave reviews, so my slight disappointment may be due to me just being in the wrong mood(?) My biggest complaints concern the characters and molasses-like slowness of the first half. I struggled with connecting to any of the characters, especially Andrew, who I really didn’t like until the last third of the book, when I began to understand him more. The story also tackles a lot: loss, drugs, relationships, car racing, competitive academia, curses, etc. and at times there just seemed to be an excruciating amount of minutiae to plow through. I freely admit I resorted to skimming some of the longer chapters, especially the sections that were like The Fast and the Furious. But there were also some things that I loved about this including: the uniqueness of the story, the diversity of the characters and their relationships, the Southern Gothic tone, the ultimate direction of the central mystery, and the final resolution, which much to my surprise had me tearing up a little. Ironically, given that I’m usually such a nut for horror, is that for me, the strengths of this book lie more in its thoughtful exploration of trauma, grief and loss, not the supernatural aspects, which until the last few chapters left me frequently confused as to what was happening.

I really hate writing reviews like this because I’m all over the place with it. I’d like to say that Summer Sons still has me thinking about it three days after I finished, so that’s another plus. In the end, if you’re a horror fan who’s looking for something different and the premise intrigues you, I’d say give this a try. And as always, don’t just go by my opinion. Please check out the other reviews on Goodreads.

Eventide, By Sarah Goodman ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Southern Gothic, Young Adult Fiction

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

Release Date: October 6th, 2020

336 Pages

Synopsis: MADNESS, SECRETS, AND LIES

Wheeler, Arkansas, 1907

When their father descends into madness after the death of their mother, Verity Pruitt and her little sister Lilah find themselves on an orphan train to rural Arkansas.

In Wheeler, eleven-year-old Lilah is quickly adopted but seventeen-year-old Verity is not. Desperate to stay close to her sister, Verity indentures herself as a farmhand. But even charming farm boy Abel Atchley can’t completely distract her from the sense that something is not quite right in this little town. Strange local superstitions abound, especially about the eerie old well at the center of the forest. The woods play tricks, unleashing heavy fog and bone-chilling cold…and sometimes visions of things that aren’t there.

But for Verity, perhaps the most unsettling revelation of all is that her parents have a scandalous history in this very town. And as she tries to unearth the past, sinister secrets come with it—secrets that someone will go to violent lengths to protect…

A haunting tale of long-buried secrets, small-town scandal, and single-minded vengeance by talented debut novelist Sarah Goodman.

Eventide is the debut novel by Sarah Cooper, and while its slow burning suspense might not be for everyone, I thoroughly enjoyed the eerie Southern gothic theme, as well as the fascinating characters and intriguing mystery. I have to be honest and say that Verity annoyed me at first with her rather know-it-all attitude, but there’s so much more behind that initial obnoxiousness. Likewise, there’s similar complexity with all the characters, even the villain who winds up deserving of a small amount of sympathy. The mystery and how everything ultimately comes together, kept me turning the pages even though there were some slow spots. There are some reviewers who have criticized that there weren’t enough fantasy/supernatural elements until the near the end, but I actually liked how they were tantalizingly kept under the surface. Overall, Eventide is an excellent YA debut by Cooper and I unhesitatingly recommend it. I’m looking forward to seeing what she comes out with next.

It Will Just Be Us, by Jo Kaplan ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Literary Horror, Mystery, Southern Gothic, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: August 11th, 2020

512 Pages

Synopsis: Sam Wakefield’s ancestral home, a decaying mansion built on the edge of a swamp, isn’t a place for children. Its labyrinthine halls, built by her mad ancestors, are filled with the echoes of the past: ghosts and memories knitted together as one. In the presence of phantoms, it’s all Sam can do to disentangle past from present in her daily life. But when her pregnant sister Elizabeth moves in after a fight with her husband, something in the house shifts. Already navigating her tumultuous relationship with Elizabeth, Sam is even more unsettled by the appearance of a new ghost: a faceless boy who commits disturbing acts—threatening animals, terrorizing other children, and following Sam into the depths of the house wielding a knife. When it becomes clear the boy is connected to a locked, forgotten room, one which is never entered, Sam realizes this ghost is not like the others. This boy brings doom. As Elizabeth’s due date approaches, Sam must unravel the secrets of Wakefield before her sister brings new life into a house marked by death. But as the faceless boy grows stronger, Sam will learn that some doors should stay closed—and some secrets are safer locked away forever.

Part 1

The Parable of the Knocker

In Wakefield Manor, a decaying ancestral mansion brooding on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia, there is a locked room. For years it has been inaccessible, closing out from the world all the aborted secrets stilled in its dormant womb. After climbing the main staircase that curves up through the house like a twisted spine, you’ll find a long hallway with striped and long-faded viridian wallpaper that evokes algae-choked seafoam. On the third floor you’ll pass a linen closet, a disused nursery, a bathroom with a cracked clawfoot tub, and a wood-beamed room inhabited by broken furniture draped in white sheets. Then the hall narrows and turns a corner, it’s high ceiling webbed in shadow, and you are faced with a windowless passage, at the end of which lies the heavy door of distressed mahogany—and whatever lies beyond it.

Tell me you don’t have goosebumps from reading that! This opening paragraph from It Will Just Be Us, is the best introduction to a haunted house story that I’ve read since The Haunting of Hill House.

I’m going to be honest and say that the characters and some of the directions the storyline takes are slightly predictable, but this is a minor complaint. It’s difficult to capture a reader’s attention and keep it with a book that doesn’t have a lot of action, but Jo Kaplan does a wonderful job here. While I said the characters are a bit predictable, they’re still interesting, especially the narrator, Sam. She’s just complicated enough, that although I was fairly confident where her decision making was going to lead, I wasn’t 100% positive.

What really makes this book, is the modern southern gothic setting and storyline which is a mix of The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, both by Shirley Jackson, with the real life Winchester Mystery House. I’d also add that there’s even a nod to The Shining, by Stephen King, near the end. The descriptive details of the house are wonderfully done and I could picture the rooms and its inhabitants, both past and present, in my mind. The house’s history and its connection to slavery is shared through the generations of Wakefields who resided there, and adds layer after layer to this haunting tale. Wakefield Manor is so vividly brought to life that it actually becomes a character in its own right. The story isn’t fast-paced, but it has this steady creeping sense of menace that kept me mesmerized. There is one particular scene that I need to warn would-be readers and animal lovers about. A bird is graphically tortured in one of the opening chapters. You should be able to see this coming though and easily skim past it.

Overall, while not the most original literary horror tale, It Will Just Be Us, is a worthy read thanks to Jo Kaplan’s beautiful writing style. I highly recommend it to fellow fans of the genre, and I will definitely be reading more of her books in the future.

 

The Breathless, by Tara Goedjen ~ 2.0 Stars

Tags

Mystery, Southern Gothic, YA Fiction

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

Release Date: October 10th, 2017

368 Pages

Synopsis: No one knows what really happened on the beach where Roxanne Cole’s body was found, but her boyfriend, Cage, took off that night and hasn’t been seen since. Until now. One year—almost to the day—from Ro’s death, when he knocks on the door of Blue Gate Manor and asks where she is.

Cage has no memory of the past twelve months. According to him, To was alive only the day before. Ro’s sister Mae wouldn’t believe him, except something’s not right. Nothing’s been right in the house since To died.

And then Mae finds the little green book. The one hidden in Ro’s room. It’s filled with secrets—dangerous secrets—about her family, and about Ro. And if what it says is true, then maybe, just maybe, Ro isn’t lost forever. 

And maybe there are secrets better left to the dead.

I requested The Breathless because it sounded like a mesmerizing Southern Gothic, and okay, I loved the cover. By the time I was halfway in though, I felt as though I was slogging through quicksand, and I had a difficult time making it through to the end.

First, there’s the characters. None of them were relatable and while they were all grieving the loss of Ro, I wound up feeling guilty because I couldn’t summon up any sympathy for them. Part of the reason why is because Cage and Lance are still obsessively in love with her, which kind of gave me the creeps. And the main character, Mae, I’m sorry to say comes off flat and wooden. 

The chapters alternate between characters and tenses which was awkward and interrupted the flow of the story. There are a few brief chapters that the narrators are unnamed and it’s never made clear who they are, although by the end of the book I had my suspicions. For some reason the author also decided to use the present tense for the historical flashbacks and the past tense for the contemporary chapters. I’m sure she was trying to use this as a clever and unique writing style, but it was annoying and off-putting.

Other reviewers have remarked on the implied racism, which I didn’t have a huge problem with, but I can understand why some readers might. Some of the chapters flash back to the 1860s, which let’s face it, wasn’t exactly a bastion of racial equality. But, Tara Goedjen relies on the over-used slaves/voodoo trope instead of actually delving into the mistreatment of slaves. Slavery isn’t even actually mentioned, it’s just implied. And the characters that are set in contemporary times are all white, so there’s very little diversity here. 

The setting was wonderful, taking place in the deep South surrounded by woods and kudzu, but there wasn’t any real suspense to the mystery and when the ending came, there were so many plot holes left unfilled that I wound up aggravated and frustrated.

Although The Breathless missed the mark for me, it has received many 4 -5 star reviews on Goodreads, so you may want to give this a try. For me though, there are many other books out there with similar themes, that are written far better, such as Melissa Marr’s Made For You and Martina Boone’s Heirs of Watson Island trilogy.

 

The May Queen Murders ~ By Sarah Jude – 3.0 Stars

Tags

Horror, LGBT Relationships, Mystery, Southern Gothic, YA Fiction

Thank you NetGalley and HMH Books for Young Readers for providing an e-Arc in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: May 3rd, 2016

Synopsis: Stay on the roads. Don’t enter the woods. Never go out at night.

Those are the rules in Rowan’s Glen, a remote farming community in the Missouri Ozarks where Ivy Templeton’s family has lived for centuries. It’s an old-fashioned way of life, full of superstition and traditions, and sixteen-year-old Ivy loves it. The other kids at school may think the Glen kids are weird, but Ivy doesn’t care–she has her cousin Heather as her best friend. The two girls share everything with each other–or so Ivy thinks. When Heather goes missing after a May Day celebration, Ivy discovers that both her best friend and her beloved hometown are as full of secrets as the woods that surround them.

Based on the synopsis I was really excited about reading The May Queen Murders. I thought it was going to be a modern day southern gothic. While it definitely had that flavor, there were a few flaws that kept this from being a perfect read for me. The first concerns the relationship between Ivy and her cousin Heather which is at the heart of this story. Ivy is a sweet girl whose love for her cousin borders on adoration. While it’s obvious that Heather returns that love, she tends to take Ivy for granted. Before her disappearance Heather is yearning to leave Rowan’s Glen, but she takes her feelings out on Ivy and it’s difficult to feel any sympathy for her. I liked Ivy but I found myself wishing she was a little more assertive with her cousin. Once Heather goes missing though, Ivy is determined to discover what happened, even if it puts her life in jeopardy. Frankly, I wasn’t able to completely buy into this abrupt change in personality even keeping in mind her devotion to Heather. Ivy has always let superstition rule her actions, yet suddenly she’s ignoring all these “signs” that previously would have sent her fleeing in the other direction. There was also the question of whether she had visions or not. This was brought up with some dreams she had, but it was never fully explored. And finally, although Ivy was likable, there’s nothing really that stands out about her. I feel the same about her family and love interest. There’s nothing really that makes any of them memorable. What I did like about this novel was the setting. I thought Sarah Jude did a wonderful job creating and describing life in the Missouri Ozarks. She even manages to make it diverse by having Ivy’s mother be Mexican, and including a LGBT relationship. The mystery was also interesting and it kept me guessing throughout the book. The only issue I had with it was that there were way too many reveals in the end. There were no less than three murderous villains, which to me just wasn’t believable in this tiny community.

Overall, The May Queen Murders wasn’t a bad read. While I thought the characters were bland, I think many teens would overlook this flaw and focus on the mystery. Because of some extremely graphic passages which even made me a little queasy, and a couple of sexual scenes, I wouldn’t recommend this to young teens. Otherwise it’s a creepy tale that many YA horror fans will enjoy.

Shivaree ~ By J.D. Horn – 4.5 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Incest, Korean War, Mississippi, Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Southern Gothic, Vampires

I received this e-book from NetGalley and 47North in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis: As the Korean War ends, practical and well-mannered nurse Corinne Ford returns stateside to live in the Mississippi town of Conroy with her new fiance, Private First Class, Elijah Dunne. She wonders if their love is strong enough to overshadow their differences, but upon her arrival to Elijah’s backwoods stomping grounds, she understands that culture shock is the least of her worries.

After four good ol’ boys are attacked in the night whole seeking to terrorize a local black family, decades of buried secrets begin to rise. From Conroy’s most powerful citizen–known as the “Judge”–to the man Corinne intends to marry, no one is innocent. Yet the deepest secret of all involves the beautiful, cruel, and dead Miss Ruby. The former belle of Conroy and Elijah’ s lost love, is neither forgotten nor truly gone. But her death is only the beginning of a slow vengeance that won’t stop until it’s hunger is satisfied.

Southern Gothic:  “A style of writing practiced by many writers of the American South whose stories set in that region are characterized by grotesque, macabre, or fantastic incidents.”

~ Encyclopedia Britannica ~

I really enjoyed J.D. Horn’s Witching Savannah series so I was intrigued when Shivaree popped up on NetGalley. While this novel is much darker than his previous stories it’s Southern Gothic at its very best.

“Kudzu vine, rapacious and never sleeping, had nearly swallowed the old Cooper house whole.”

One thing I love about about J.D. Horn is the exquisite detail he puts into the description of his settings without taking anything away from the plot. You can feel the sultry air caressing your skin and smell the heady mix of smoke, and creosote emitted by the town’s paper mill, and hear that slow southern drawl when people speak. From the very first chapter you’re captivated by what seems to be your typical sleepy little southern town but it’s quickly revealed that underneath that deceptive exterior, Conroy is seething with racism, corruption, and other dark secrets that its townspeople would rather not see the light of day.

Poor Corinne unsuspectingly walks into this nest of vipers, expecting to settle down and start a family with the charming young man she met in Korea. Even without the supernatural evil doings going on, Corinne would never fit in with the residents of Conroy. She’s level-headed, outspoken and independent, and because of these attributes she’s met with suspicion and derision, particularly by Elijah’s mother. While Corinne attempts to get along with her future in-laws, she’s no pushover. She wants to love and support Elijah, and if it means butting heads with his family or even the sheriff, so be it.

Elijah comes across as an earnest, sweet country boy at first, but he’s hiding some pretty dark secrets from Corinne which makes him slightly less sympathetic. This doesn’t make him an unlikable character though. Just one that is a product of the time period and his environment. 

The main villain of the story is Ruby, who even before she’s turned into a vampire, is one nasty piece of work. Yet I found myself reluctantly feeling sorry for her at times. The daughter of the truly abhorrent Judge, she never really had a chance given her upbringing. 

As far as the rest of the characters, they’re all pretty despicable, and deserve what’s coming to them. The only exception is Lucille, the Judge’s maid, aka slave. Forced to send her two children away to protect them from not only the supernatural evil which has invaded the town, but also the local Klan, she’s forced to stay and wait hand and foot on the Judge, fearful of him sending his minions after her if she attempted to flee. She and Corinne make a dynamic duo in the end.

While the Korean War is the background for Corinne’s and Elijah’s romance, it does seem a little superfluous. It’s kind of thrown in there, but there’s no real apparent reason beyond setting the time period of the early 1950s and perhaps an explanation for Corinne’s feminism. I found myself wishing the author had used this to explore a little more the traumatic effects of war. Since the novel is under 300 pages maybe he just didn’t have the time to fit it in. Or, maybe I’m just being overly fussy. Sometime a story is just a story.

Shiveree touches on many issues including racism, physical and sexual abuse, incest, and bullying, yet it never gets bogged down by these weighty themes. The ending while satisfying, definitely leaves the door open for a possible sequel. If you like deeply conflicted characters and plots that slowly unveil their secrets like peeling back the layers of an onion, than I highly recommend this book.