Lola Davis—formerly Achelois Brightwood—is startled when someone from her past locates her to deliver news of her father's passing, a man she hasn't spoken to in twenty years.
Cypress Cove, the rambling house on the banks of the Texas bayou, is now hers, and Lola is being summoned to claim it.
But she no longer remembers anything about it or the town of Oleander. As if it's been erased from her memory...
Lola soon realizes that Oleander harbors a dark secret, one told in horrific images displayed in The Gallery plagues, war, mutilations...torture...
But just what do those secrets have to do with Lola's presence at Cypress Cove, and to what extent was Lola herself a participant?
Lola made it out of Oleander once. Will she be so lucky a second time?
Lola Davis doesn't remember much about her childhood. Still, she has carried the trauma of losing her mother and being sent away by her father, never to see him alive again. It's been 20 years since she had any contact with him when she gets the phone call that he has died.
She and her husband make the long trip to Cyprus Cove, the house she hated as a child, to settle her father's affairs. The townspeople speak highly of her father, almost as if they were his adoring fans. They have strange customs and a cult-like philosophy that would have sent me packing immediately. The longer Lola stays the harder it is to get out. She never felt she belonged there but the town does not want her to leave.
Secrets are revealed slowly on two timelines. There is the present day and flashbacks to 20 years ago as Lola tries to piece her memories together. I was never sure whether or not to trust what Lola was experiencing due to her drug addiction. I didn't care for the husband at all, who seemed an odd combination of naive and manipulative.
I loved the atmosphere! The rickety dock, the oppressive heat, and the pervasive sense of wrongness that carried through the whole length of the book hooked me right away. They say you can't go home again, but in horror, that should be changed to: you shouldn't go home again if you managed to escape the first time. I recommend this book for any reader who enjoys evil little towns where outsiders are never safe.
4 out of 5 stars
My thanks to Horrorsmith Publishing.
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