Dead of Summer by Jessa Maxwell

Years after her best friend mysteriously disappeared from a remote New England island, a young woman returns in search of answers.

Orla O’Connor hasn’t been to the isolated New England enclave of Hadley Island since she graduated from high school a decade ago. As a teenager, her best friend Alice disappeared from its shores without a trace—but with plenty of rumors. Now Orla returns to her family’s beachfront home to clean it out before her parents sell it. The island and her best friend’s empty house next door are stirring up memories she would like to avoid.

Then there are the locals, always gossiping and watching Orla’s every move. Worst of all, David, Orla’s childhood crush and son of a wealthy Manhattan family, is back for the summer with his new, impossibly pretty girlfriend, Faith.

Meanwhile, local Henry hasn’t left his house since Alice disappeared, in an attempt to let the accusations against him die down—except they never have. Orla’s return has shaken him, and lately he’s been seeing strange things through his telescope: shadowy figures walking on the beach in the middle of the night and a light on in an upstairs window of Alice's long-abandoned childhood home.

When another person on the island disappears, Orla, David, and Henry find themselves pulled into an eerie mystery that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

 Then:  

Alice and Orla are neighbors and best friends, growing up together and dreaming of how they will someday attend college and share an apartment in New York. A rift forms between them when Orla develops a possessive crush on David, the boy from a wealthy family, and Alice becomes more secretive. On the night of a huge party, Alice disappears. Some assume she drowned, others think she was murdered. Her body was never recovered, but gossip and rumors are all aimed at Henry, a local man who everyone thinks is odd.

Now: 

Henry has become a recluse, locked away with his wife in a home they have never left since the accusations first started. Orla has returned to her childhood home to prepare it for sale. David is back to take over his father's business with his new girlfriend Faith in tow. At first, Faith is thrilled at the invitation to spend the summer with David. But his strange behavior and obnoxious father, combined with the mystery of a missing girl, have her questioning everything.

Told from multiple points of view, it seems that every character is spinning their own web of lies, deceit and secrets. The plot moves slowly at first but it gradually pulled me all the way in to this twisty mystery. I was most engaged with Faith's point of view as she was the only one who was an outsider to the island and so brought a fresh perspective.  Dead of Summer is a perfect beach read. 

4 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Atria Books for the invitation to read an e-Arc

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Dark Roads Traveled by Tony Tremblay

 

J.R. Tolkien once wrote that the road goes ever on and on. Tony Tremblay examines the darker side of Tolkien’s quote with four novellas ranging from the soul-sucking isolation of identity loss to the horrifying specter of mass annihilation.

Orange Eyes: A taxi driver with amnesia attempts to determine who he is and why he has orange eyes. His answers come when a woman calls for a cab and relates to him a story about her sister—a woman with amnesia and orange eyes. The three of them engage in a psychedelic journey of horror to discover the answers they seek.

The Cabin on The Mountain: There is a log cabin in the mountains of Goffstown, New Hampshire, where lost souls travel—and are never seen again. The cabin has a caretaker who oversees the property, but he cannot interfere with those who seek refuge. That all changes when a young boy, a husband seeking his wife, and a wife seeking her husband descend on the cabin.

Ghosts: A middle-aged woman purchases a home, unaware that it is the site of multiple murders. After several life-threatening instances, she turns to her neighbors, the local gas station owner, and the police chief for help. She soon learns that ghosts are quite different than what she has been led to believe.

The Tempest: The end of the world begins locally with a sound that kills an older man and a young woman. As they navigate their environment in the hopes of survival, additional catastrophes batter them to the point of hopelessness. When it appears their lives are over, salvation comes in the form of a hole in the ground. Or does it?

Dark Roads Traveled contains four novellas in one fantastic book by one of my favorite authors, and I have been dying to talk about it for months!

Orange Eyes

A lonely woman brings a stranger back to her apartment and then goes missing. When she is found, she is no longer the woman she used to be. A man with amnesia and orange eyes will help to find the reasons why. This story went off in a shocking and brutal direction I was not expecting.

The Cabin On The Mountain was my favorite part of the book. In it, a guardian and his dog greet visitors who will walk up a mountain path and never return. It is not known how these visitors mysteriously find their way to this guardian. Only those who have been called may walk the path. There is a remarkable depth and pulse to these characters with themes of abuse and dementia that drive this intricately woven tale with a focus on the darker side of human nature. There is much trauma and grief among these complex characters in this well-crafted literary fiction. I would love a novel-length sequel.

Ghost
A woman moves into a house in a town where there have been several murders and strange suicides. Her friendly neighbors know more than they're telling in this twisty and surprisingly touching story. 

The Tempest is about a storm of epic proportions with hail like ice picks and winds that lift homes and people alike into a black hole, wild fires, lightning, a sound that knocks you unconscious, and then kills you. All over the world the apocalypse is upon us. Who will survive?  Here, the author has created a multiverse that even Lovecraft would be proud of.

These imaginative and well-crafted stories are presented with a rich and nuanced narrative that evoke a range of emotions. Dark Roads Traveled has landed firmly on my best horror of the year list.

My thanks to Tony Tremblay for the ARC 

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The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis

The Crucible meets The Virgin Suicides in this haunting debut about five sisters in a small village in eighteenth century England whose neighbors are convinced they’re turning into dogs.

Even before the rumors about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbed to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die. But when the villagers start to hear barking, and one claims to see the Mansfield sisters transform before his very eyes, the allegations spark fascination and fear like nothing has before.

The truth is that though the inhabitants of Little Nettlebed have never much liked the Mansfield girls—a little odd, think some; a little high on themselves, perhaps—they’ve always had plenty to say about them. As the rotating perspectives of five villagers quickly make clear, now is no exception. Even if local belief in witchcraft is waning, an aversion to difference is as widespread as ever, and these conflicting narratives all point to the same ultimate conclusion: something isn’t right in Little Nettlebed, and the sisters will be the ones to pay for it.

As relevant today as any time before, The Hounding celebrates the wild breaks from convention we’re all sometimes pulled toward, and wonders if, in a world like this one, it isn’t safer to be a dog than an unusual young girl.

 

Once in a while, I take a break from horror to read historical fiction. The Hounding seemed like it might present the best of both worlds.

The setting is a small village in eighteenth-century England. Rumors swirl around the orphaned Mansfield girls. Even before one man's tale of seeing them change into dogs, people thought they were off. They didn't look like they should, or act like they should. Why are they out at night when men dictate it is unseemly for girls not to be at home? Why do they not smile demurely and speak when spoken to? How dare they not subjugate themselves to men?

As for whether or not they actually turn into dogs, you will have to read to find out.

Although there are some tense and suspenseful scenes, the plot moved slowly. I would recommend this more to fans of historical fiction than I would to anyone looking for a spooky read. I expected something more along the lines of The Witch, but this puts me more in mind of Nightbitch.

3 out of 5 stars.

My thanks to Henry Holt and Co. for the invitation to read an e-ARC through Edelweiss. 

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The Burning Class by Luisa Colón

 

In the midst of the rampant crime and corruption of early 1980s Brooklyn, Analie has built a life for herself as the adoring young wife of a New York City police officer and trusted nanny to a sweet little boy.

But Analie has a deadly past and a terrible secret that’s catching up to her—one that she’ll do anything to outrun, even if it means setting her world on fire and watching everyone and everything go up in flames.

Analie has been burning for a long time...

and you never forget your first crime.

The Burning Class is Luisa Colon's incendiary second novel, a gripping supernatural thriller that weaves a story of trauma, fury, and love against the backdrop of a city on fire.

When Analie was a child, she befriended Tenny, a poor, lonely, neglected girl. They were the best of friends for a time, until Tenny became more clingy and demanding. Analie tried to end the friendship but Tenny refused to let it go, becoming more and more intrusive and bothersome.

Now, as a grown woman, Analie is married to Corvi, a man she had a secret crush on when they were children. Corvi also came from an abusive, neglectful home.  He is everything she thinks she wants. A man who sees her for exactly what she is and wants her not despite it, but because of it. They seem to be a perfect match made in hell. Analie has unresolved trauma from her childhood, of which she never speaks. This fuels most of her actions and reactions throughout the book. She is always looking outward for validation from others that she is a good person or at least good enough.

This is the author's second novel, and the first thing I notice is how much she has honed her skill in both character development and pacing.

The Burning Class is part coming of age, part supernatural horror, and part domestic drama, all twisted together to form an explosive tale that blew me away. I couldn't put it down. The personal dynamic between the characters was masterfully crafted to propel the story forward to a skillful and satisfying conclusion. 

5 out of 5 stars

My thanks to the author for the gifted paperback.

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