Lucky Girl, How I Became A Horror Writer: A Krampus Story by M. Rickert

 

Ro, a struggling writer, knows all too well the pain and solitude that holiday festivities can awaken. When she meets four people at the local diner—all of them strangers and as lonely as Ro is—she invites them to an impromptu Christmas dinner. And when that party seems in danger of an early end, she suggests they each tell a ghost story. One that’s seasonally appropriate.

But Ro will come to learn that the horrors hidden in a Christmas tale—or one’s past—can never be tamed once unleashed.

Ro has had a difficult life and faced more tragedy than most people at a young age.

She meets a group of strangers at a diner and they form a bond over their shared loneliness that spans several Christmases. 

As the years pass the bond never deepens enough to reveal dangerous secrets until it's too late.

This is a tough one to review, I feel like Ro is the only character I really got to know but I suppose there are reasons for that since we can't be let in on the secrets before she is. The pace was a little slow for such a short book but the payoff at the end was worth it. I would recommend it to readers who like holiday horror but Krampus doesn't make much of an appearance here.

3 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Tor for the invitation to read an advance copy.

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