Near the Bone by Christina Henry

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Titan Books in exchange for an honest review.

Christina Henry is back in full form! After being a little disappointed by The Ghost Tree, I am pleased to report that Near the Bone is a truly fantastic creepy tale.

It tells the story of Mattie, a young woman who lives with her husband William in a remote forest cabin on a mountainside. A strange creature appears on the mountain one day, something which is like a bear and not. It soon becomes clear though that things have not been right long before that. William is a very controlling person and he doesn't like that the arrival of the creature appears to be affecting his tenuous hold on Mattie.

I was utterly mesmerised by this story. Henry knows how to build tension and there were absolute piles of it in this book. The relationship between William and Mattie is one of the main driving forces and it was harrowing to see the unpleasant reality of it slowly unfurl as I read on. As with many of Henry's books, Near the Bone has a strong focus on feminism and gender roles and this is handled extremely well. I felt such a strong connection to Mattie and everything she goes through broke my heart a million times. Every character was so real to me and they all had depth which made you either love or hate them.

So I have covered the characters and relationships side but what about the horror? Well rest assured, this book has plenty of that. There are some particularly gruesome scenes here and also a lot of the slower, more tension-based horror that I mentioned earlier. I think this book is particularly effective because it has both domestic horror (from the threat of William) and the horror that comes from being hunted by a supernatural creature. It provides a variety in the kind of fear you feel as a reader and as a bonus it appeals to all tastes.

Christina Henry is one of my favourite authors and with books like this, it isn't hard to see why. If you want a tense, absorbing horror with brilliant characters and a heartbreaking plot, I urge you to check this book out. You will not be disappointed.

Overall Rating:

 .5

Christmas Evil by Mark L'Estrange

 

Pretty disappointed with this on the whole. It wasn't awful but there were three key things which stopped me enjoying it as much as I could:

1. Too many exclamation marks! Writers should use these very rarely and it felt like every story had at least five. They were unnecessary and became very annoying to me

2. The stories followed a pattern of 'x goes somewhere, encounters weird people, weird people or x end up being a secret monster'. This wasn't every story but it was a huge chunk of them and it became very repetitive

3. Finally, one of the stories had a weird scene where some lesbians pretend to be straight to make a guy buy them expensive champagne, then mock him and make out in front of him. This added nothing to the story and just alienated me as a reader because it was presented as such a typical thing to happen and like, people don't do that?? The sexual content wasn't huge in this horror collection and certainly not compared to some others I've read, but sometimes it cropped up in weird ways (like a young boy looking up the skirt of a young girl, again for no reason) and it was always distracting when it did. I have nothing against sexual content but it has to add something and not just be a confusing aside

Overall, there are far worse horror collections out there but I still feel this needed a good editor to clean it up.

Overall Rating:

Silent Night by Nell Pattison

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher HarperCollins Audio UK in exchange for an honest review.

Had I realised this was a police procedural type book, I probably wouldn't have requested it. Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised by Silent Night. Paige is a deaf interpreter hired by the police to help out when a student and teacher go missing at a school for the deaf. When the teacher is found dead, the hunt for the student intensifies but with both students and staff keeping secrets, this is definitely not a clear cut case.

There was a lot going on in this book in a good way and having the main character being an interpreter did add a nice spin on the usual detective story. I liked the main character on the whole and I thought her past and life added to the plot greatly which isn't always the case with these thrillers. In particular, her relationships with her sister and her ex were some of my favourite parts of the book, and they really drove the emotional core of the story.

I listened to this as an audiobook and I would definitely recommend it this way. The main narrator was great and easy to listen to. There was an additional deaf narrator brought in to narrate some chapters from a student's point of view, something which is fantastic in concept but I feel isn't executed well. Those chapters are simply not very clear and I really struggled to make out what was happening in them. I don't think this is the fault of the narrator but more to do with the way it was recorded/produced as it mostly seems to be a volume issue, at least for me. It's a shame because it really added to the tone of the book and I think it's a fantastic decision representation-wise.

Overall, Silent Night is an engaging police procedural thriller with a unique and interesting setting. There is a lot of meat to the plot but it never feels confusing, and the strong relationship with the characters keeps you invested throughout. I would definitely recommend giving it a try and if you like police procedurals, I'm sure you will love this more than I do.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Other's Gold by Elizabeth Ames

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Pushkin Press in exchange for an honest review.

I read an extract of this book aaaages ago and was instantly intrigued, despite it not being my usual genre at all. As a rule, I dislike more literary books and I try to stay away from them. But something about The Other's Gold just drew me in and I was very happy when I finally got the chance to finish the story.

This is the tale of four women spanning several decades, who meet in college and form very tight friendships. Each of the four women will make a 'mistake' throughout the course of the story and the plot structure is built around that. This is literary fiction as I stated so you are kept almost at a distance from the four characters throughout the book. You get a strong sense of who they are but I never quite felt close to them and I think that's because of the writing style. Having said that though, I found them a varied and interesting group to read about.

One thing I wasn't expecting about this book is that it is remarkably refreshing. I had a rough idea of what the mistakes might entail before I started reading it and I was surprised by the nature of almost all of them. Two of them are very weird in an almost off the wall way and these were my favourite to read about (although that's an odd phrase given they're not pleasant haha). The first mistake is pretty pedestrian and I actively disliked the nature of the second one.

The main problem of this book is that there are several things which don't feel fully explored, despite the length and the entire plot basically being a character study. Each mistake is focused on in turn but then the feelings that caused those mistakes aren't really resolved for anyone. This isn't as big a detriment as it sounds but it particularly stood out at certain moments and was a bit of a shame.

Overall, The Other's Gold is a compelling and expertly-told tale of four women and the lives they build together. Is it perfect? No. But I found it both enjoyable and extremely hard to put down. The story and characters sucked me in and I know this is a book I will remember for a long time.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Forever House by Tim Waggoner

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Flame Tree Press in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I picked up this book. What I got was an inventive, intriguing and all-round solid horror book. The Forever House tells the story of the 'Eldreds', a group of aptly-named eldritch beings who like to disguise themselves as humans and feed off the pain of others. They are just moving into a neighbourhood where a horrific massacre took place and they're getting ready to mess with their latest victims.

The pacing of this book is pretty solid. You get chapters written in third person but focusing on each of the different people living in the neighbourhood, and this is done extremely well as there are many characters but it didn't become exhausting. The people themselves are a fairly mixed bunch. You have Neal and Kandice, a married couple who are struggling due to Kandice revealing she is bi. There is Cora, Martin and their daughter Vivienne, a family dealing with the pressure of Martin's gambling addiction. Perhaps the hardest character to read about is Spencer, a man struggling with his pedophilic urges and attraction to Vivienne. There are more characters than this but I considered these the main ones.

So yes, one of the main characters of this book is a pedophile and honestly, his sections get very graphic. I want to commend Waggoner for tackling this topic and actually pulling it off pretty well. Spencer is sympathetic in a way that might make some readers uncomfortable but his desires are never condoned. Having said that, the child character is described in an extremely graphic and sexual way throughout his chapters and this was very tough to stomach. I suspect a lot of people won't enjoy the book because of this and I think that is a valid reason to avoid picking it up.

Even without the sexualisation of children, the rest of this book has a large focus on sex. It felt a bit gratuitous a lot of the time and I honestly feel it didn't need to be there. Horror suffers a lot from unnecessary sex scenes and sexual assault (looking at you Stephen King) so it was a shame to see that at play here. At one point, a sex scene should have a fairly large emotional fallout but this is simply never discussed or dealt with by the narrative, a choice which is odd given the fantastic characterisation the rest of the time.

Sexual content aside, everything else about this book was spot on. I've already mentioned the characters but the way the horror was manifested into the story was done very creatively and I honestly had no idea how it would turn out. I would definitely recommend this to fans of eldritch-type horror who can stomach the graphic content and like a slightly light-hearted tone to their narration.

Overall Rating:

Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley, Edelweiss and publisher Bloomsbury Publishing Plc in exchange for an honest review.

What a refreshing thriller this was! I requested this ARC mainly because I have a real thing for thrillers based around games and/or two people psychologically battling each other. This book mentions having both of those things in the blurb but the game aspect is very downplayed in reality. It's almost a shame because it's clearly used as a gimmick to draw people in (and it works) but there is enough going on in this story that the tenuous link to 'Never Have I Ever' is a bit of a baffling one. Calling the book and the game 'The Worst Thing I Ever Did' would be more accurate and is still intriguing enough in my opinion.

Thankfully as mentioned, this book has enough going on that I didn't even mind about the misnamed game. The plot is a new woman moves to a neighbourhood and tries to blackmail our protagonist over an event which happened years ago. You find out extremely quickly what said event was and indeed, the first half of the book is a very unusual reading experience. I was frankly a bit bored during it since there is almost no effort made to build tension. Anytime there is any sort of mystery, you are handed the answer almost immediately without any fanfare. There is also an annoying thing where our blackmailer (Roux) constantly compliments our protagonist (Amy) on how clever and unlike other housewives she is. I get what the author was going for but it wasn't done particularly well.

Having said all that, at almost exactly 50% of the way through there is a spanner thrown into the plot and I got my first big surprise of the book. I did not see this first twist coming and instantly my interest was reignited. Honestly I feel like this was the real start of the book and it's a shame it came so late because I was utterly hooked after that. It was genuinely brilliant to be surprised by this book not once but twice, and both surprises had the added bonus of not being completely ridiculous.

I mentioned right at the start that this thriller was refreshing and that is mostly down to the originality. Amy is a scuba diver and this is woven very well into the story to both add to her character and create some nice plot moments. She was utterly believable as a character to me and was much more dimensional than most thriller protagonists. I also fell in love with the relationship she had with her stepdaughter, which was far stronger than that to her husband in my opinion. The other characters were flatter but still reasonably fleshed-out and compelling to read about.

Overall, this was a really solid thriller after the halfway point. If I was just rating the second half, it would be a 4 star easily but I did knock some off for the somewhat dull opening. However, I was very impressed by the characterisation and it was brilliant to read a thriller that felt more unique.

Overall Rating:

.5

For Better and Worse by Margot Hunt

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Harlequin-Mira in exchange for an honest review.

The blurb of this novel is pretty vague so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I think I kind of imagined two married people working together to murder someone to protect their son when he gets into bad stuff. For some reason I wasn't expecting their son to be a young child, and this book is actually about Natalie wanting to take revenge on a teacher who she believes has been abusing young students of his, including their son. I can't really give anymore detail than that without getting into spoilers, but I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by For Better and Worse.

The main reason I wanted to read this book was because I am getting a little tired of thrillers where the husband plays a minor or non-existent role. Far too often it is the case where the husband is relegated purely to a suspicious figure with little or no personality. This book seemed to hint at a larger role and indeed, Will becomes one of the two narrators later on in the story. Both Natalie and Will made for compelling characters to read about and I found myself invested in their plotlines and intrigued as to what decisions they would make.

Compared to some thrillers this is more of a slow burn, which isn't to say that's a negative. I personally enjoyed the pacing as the focus remains on the choices the characters make and how far they are willing to go to both protect their son and themselves. There aren't really any big twists (again, not a negative) but there are a few minor things which keep you guessing. The writing style is spot on and I loved how Hunt built up suspense using the dual narration. There are plenty of uncertainties to prevent you working out how it's going to go, and I was very invested the whole time I was reading it.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this thriller for people who enjoy a tense story without the need for huge twists or a breakneck pace. It explores an interesting marital relationship, the intense bond of family and the fallout that can come from when an adult sexually abuses a child. It puts a nice spin on the usual cat and mouse story and I will definitely be seeking out Margot Hunt's other work now.

Overall Rating: