Darling by Mercedes M. Yardley

 

Darling has its demons.
Cherry LaRouche escaped the claws of Darling, Louisiana at sixteen. When she is forced to return after her mother’s death, Cherry and her children move back into her childhood home where the walls whisper and something sinister skitters across the roof at night.
While Cherry tries to settle back into a town where evil spreads like infection, the bodies of several murdered children turn up. When Cherry’s own daughter goes missing, she’s forced to confront the true monsters of Darling.

Cherry left Darling Louisiana young and hopeful of a better life, with a husband-to-be, a baby bump, and zero regrets. 

That better life didn't last too long or maybe never fully materialized. Now she is older but not a lot wiser, with no choice but to return to her childhood home with her two kids in tow.

This seems like a pretty bad move since someone is killing the town's children and it's not long before Cherry's own baby daughter goes missing, possibly taken by the killer.

I was fully engaged in the story even though it was difficult for me to like Cherry. On the one hand, she was a good mother but on the other hand, she made some pretty dumb decisions that grated on my nerves.

There is also some romance thrown in, by which I do not mean unrealistic gratuitous sex scenes that border on the grotesque as usually passes for romance these days. I mean literally, some things that were romantic until they weren't. And when the romance was over it stopped in a big way. It seemed odd to me that Cherry would want to involve herself in any romantic entanglements in this town. Considering what she had previously been through I expected her to be less naïve.

I won't say that the outcome of what happened with her daughter was entirely predictable, but I did have my suspicions early on, and they were mostly correct.

I'm not sure why I enjoyed this book so much, and yet I did. The town's people were alternately welcoming, and nasty, with such frequency to give me whiplash. I'm not clear on whether something supernatural was involved since it was never fully explained. Maybe I enjoyed shaking my head and rolling my eyes at Cherry while wishing she would make better choices. Still, I am going to give this a 4 out of 5 stars even if I am at a loss to explain what I just read.

My thanks to Black Spot Books

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About the author

Mercedes M. Yardley is a whimsical dark fantasist who wears poisonous flowers in her hair. She is the author of Beautiful Sorrows, the Stabby Award-winning Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love, Pretty Little Dead Girls, and Nameless. She won the prestigious Bram Stoker Award for her story Little Dead Red and was a Bram Stoker Award nominee for her short story “Loving You Darkly.” Mercedes is the editor of the dark fiction anthology Arterial Bloom. You can find her at mercedesmyardley.com

Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy

 

Mary is a quiet, middle-aged woman doing her best to blend into the background. Unremarkable. Invisible. Unknown even to herself.

But lately, things have been changing inside Mary. Along with the hot flashes and body aches, she can’t look in a mirror without passing out, and the voices in her head have been urging her to do unspeakable things.

Fired from her job in New York, she moves back to her hometown, hoping to reconnect with her past and inner self. Instead, visions of terrifying, mutilated specters overwhelm her with increasing regularity and she begins auto-writing strange thoughts and phrases. Mary discovers that these experiences are echoes of an infamous serial killer.

Then the killings begin again.

Mary’s definitely going to find herself. 

The cover and the description really sucked me in, and will likely do the same to other women of a certain age (yes that is me!)

How clever, (I thought) to take what is already a difficult transition in a woman's life and turn it into a horror novel. I thought this was a novel about a woman who had suffered some trauma or breakdown in her life, now trying to cope with menopause and further emotional and physical upset. Mary is about to have her 50th birthday, and she is going through some normal and not-so-normal experiences. Unfortunately, Mary is also an unreliable narrator and this book is full of unlikable characters.

At first, I could somewhat relate to her, the feeling invisible, the avoidance of mirrors. The story has a really strong beginning with creepy scenes and some humor too. Then it sort of peters out and turns into a draggy slow paced festival of weirdness that is too out there even for me. And that is really saying something. I'm not that bothered that a male author attempted to write from the viewpoint of a menopausal woman, in fact, kudos for even trying to understand. I have no problem with male authors writing female characters or vice versa. It just didn't really work for me. It tried to combine too many elements into one plot that stretched on for too long. You may enjoy it more than I did.

2 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Tor Nightfire

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They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe

 

If you can hear the call of the water,
It's already far too late.

They say Cape Disappointment is haunted. That's why tourists used to flock there in droves. They'd visit the rocky shoreline under the old lighthouse's watchful eye and fish shells from the water as they pretended to spot dark shapes in the surf. Now the tourists are long gone, and when Meredith Strand and her young daughter return to Meredith's childhood home after an acrimonious split from her wife, the Cape seems more haunted by regret than any malevolent force.

But her mother, suffering from early stages of Alzheimer's, is convinced the ghost stories are real. Not only is there something in the water, but it's watching them. Waiting for them. Reaching out to Meredith's daughter the way it has to every woman in their line for generations-and if Meredith isn't careful, all three women, bound by blood and heartbreak, will be lost one by one to the ocean's mournful call.

Part modern gothic, part ghost story, They Drown Our Daughters explores the depths of motherhood, identity, and the lengths a woman will go to hold on to both.

Once upon a time, a wronged woman was willing to do whatever it took to secure her daughter's future.

Maybe if her intentions had been pure, maybe if they had not held a tinge of selfishness things would have turned out differently. 

Instead, what she set in motion ruined the lives of generations to come.

Years later, rumors of witchcraft and a curse on the women are still fodder for gossip and pranks, and occasional vandalism on the family property.

When Meredith returns to her childhood home with her young daughter in tow, there is no happy reunion between her and her mother. Old wounds are reopened, and danger lurks in the water, waiting for its chance to claim another life.

This story is told on multiple timelines, from the points of view of several generations of women. I would describe it as historical horror fiction that makes its way into the modern day. It is atmospheric and dark, touching on the bonds between mothers and daughters and what it takes to sever them. There is a bit of supernatural mystery woven in, with a quick pace that kept me turning the pages. I was all in on this story until probably the final third when it took a weird turn without an adequate explanation.

I still enjoyed the story but that irked me enough to deduct a star.

4 out of 5 stars.

My thanks to Poisoned Pen Press

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Sallow Bend by Alan Baxter

 

When two teenagers go missing from the small, rural town of Sallow Bend, the residents come together to search for them. Little do they suspect that finding the wayward girls will be the start of their problems. An ancient evil is rising, and only one man seems to realize that everyone is in danger and this is not the first time it’s happened. With the carnival in town, people want to have a good time, but for many, this will be the worst time of their lives. SALLOW BEND – a tense and frightening folk horror novel from Alan Baxter and Cemetery Dance Publications.

Tricia is still grieving the loss of her son Toby. She tries to hold out hope that he is alive and will be found someday but he's been missing for a year and it's just not looking good. Her marriage has also taken a hit since her husband's drinking has spiraled out of control ever since their son disappeared. Now two young girls have gone missing and Tricia wants to help with the search. Some of the locals suspect the carny folk while others are suspicious of Caleb, the school janitor who can never look anyone in the eye for long. Tricia and Caleb team up in the search but what they discover goes far beyond their wildest fears.

The girls are found alive, but only Caleb realizes that something is horribly wrong. They were searching for two girls so why have they come back with three? Who or what is this stranger? And why does the entire town think they've known her all her life?

The three girls are now inseparable, and unnatural deaths seem to follow everywhere they go.

I loved this book so much! There is an old superstitious saying when you get a weird unexplained chill, that it's because a goose just walked over your grave. This book gave me chills so many times that the entire gaggle of geese must have walked over mine. 

Sallow Bend was a pleasantly creepy surprise for me. It has pretty much everything my heart desires in a horror novel. There's a small town with a dark past, lots of secrets, the carnival rolling in at the perfect moment to get blamed for some disappearances, and a whole lot of supernatural goings-on.

5 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Cemetery Dance Publications for the digital copy.

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