The Haunting of Paynes Hollow by Kelley Armstrong

When Samantha Payne’s grandfather dies, she figures she won’t even get a mention in the will. After all, she hasn’t seen him in fourteen years, not since her father took his own life after being accused of murdering a child at their lakefront cottage. Her grandfather always insisted her father was innocent, despite Sam having caught him burying the child’s body, his clothing streaked with blood.

But when she does attend the reading of the will at the behest of her aunt, she discovers that her grandfather left her the very valuable lakefront property where the family cottage sits. There’s one catch: Sam needs to stay in the cottage for a month. To finally face the fact she was wrong and her father was innocent, in her grandfather's words.

Traveling to Paynes Hollow, Sam is faced with the realities of her childhood and the secrets kept hidden in the shadows of her memories. When her aunt goes missing a couple days into their stay, Sam begins to question everything again. Plagued by nightmares and paranoia, she begins hearing sounds in the forest and seeing shapes crawling from the water as the rippling waves of the lake promise something unspeakably dark lurking just below their surface.

The Paynes family has always had good fortune and better luck than most people. Until that day when Samantha Payne saw her father burying a dead child. Samantha became an outcast as the child of a murderer. Her grandfather cut her off for having told what she saw her father do. After being estranged from him for so many years, she never expected to be remembered in his will. She is shocked to learn that she has inherited the most valuable part of his estate. All of the lakefront land, where the old family cottages still stand, is worth millions of dollars. But of course, there is a catch: Gramps has placed a stipulation in the will that states she must live on the property for a full month because he claims he wants her to remember what really happened to the murdered boy.

As a child, Sam was warned to stay away from the lake at night. She was told nighttime swimming was forbidden and that even dipping your toes in the water's edge was dangerous after dark due to rip currents and undertow. She was too young to question how a lake would have giant waves to sweep her away as if it were an ocean. She was told when she awakened to the sound of hoof beats at night that she was only dreaming.

The author weaves a chilling story of folklore, legend, domestic drama, and supernatural horror in an isolated woodsy setting where people have a tendency to go missing. There is just the right amount of tension between Sam, her fiercely protective aunt Gail, and the reluctant caretaker, Ben. The spooky occurrences begin almost immediately upon Sam and Gail's arrival at the oddly preserved family cottage and the eerie atmosphere is deliciously dark.

5 out of 5 stars.

My thanks to St. Martin's Press for the advance copy through Netgalley.

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I'll Quit When I'm Dead by Luke Smitherd

 

In this page-turning, provocative horror novel, two desperate souls attempt to turn their lives around, with nightmarish consequences if they fail.

Madison has seen better days. Reeling from a bad breakup, self-soothing with junk food, and totally consumed by her lack of direction, she’s in need of a big reset. When she runs into an old acquaintance at the gym, Madison is shocked by how fit they’ve suddenly become. The cause? An all-female fitness boot camp led by ex-military guru Ellie Fellowes. The course is characterized by grueling reps and minimal contact with the outside world, and when Madison signs up to experience it herself, something doesn’t feel right. The other students keep acting strangely; Ellie seems almost superhuman, and her intense motivational methods are becoming bizarre, even dangerous. But Madison is getting results. How can she stop now?

Musician Johnny Blake has been struggling with a pain pill addiction after a very public, very bad fall. At the encouragement of loved ones, he retreats to a secluded cottage to detox. But Johnny isn’t alone. Something is lurking in the shadows of his new home—a creature unnatural and hungry, one that traps Johnny in a frightening bargain. If Johnny doesn’t stay off his pills and keep his end of the deal, he will be eaten alive.

As Madison and Johnny’s predicaments spiral into the unthinkable, they will have to look within to find the true and terrifying answer to the age-old  How badly do you want it?

Nerve-shredding and compulsively readable, I’ll Quit When I’m Dead marks Luke Smitherd as a major voice in horror to watch.

Madison is feeling lost, with no sense of purpose or control over her life. She wants to be stronger, not just physically but mentally and emotionally. It is for this reason she commits herself to a month-long course of strenuous activities with the risk of harsh punishments if she fails to complete the assigned tasks. 

"With your permission, I'd like to slap you in the face."

Johnny became addicted to painkillers after an injury. Rather than go to rehab, he plans to detox in a secluded cottage owned by a friend who wants to help him. But this is no ordinary cottage. It lies in a thin place, where monstrous beings can and do easily slip through.

"Don't go into the shallows alone."

This psychological and supernatural horror is told from two points of view in separate plotlines that at first appear to have nothing to do with each other, but eventually converge in an ingenious way.

Chapters switch back and forth, from Johnny's supernatural alternate universe terror, to Madison's almost cult like situation with a small group of women that gets smaller and smaller as the activities they are forced to complete go from difficult, to dangerous, to deadly.

All in all this was a suspenseful and well written plot but I found it harder to relate to Johnny's reasoning than Madison's. Madison was in a fragile state and saw an acquaintance who had amazing results with this month-long course, which made her want to try it too. Johnny wanted to kick his drug addiction so badly, yet made the weird decision to skip proven rehab methods in order to force the supernatural aspects of the book.

For the majority of the time, this felt like reading two different books at once. I was more invested in Madison's story than Johnny's. I was probably at the halfway mark before I figured out how they were connected, which I thought was very clever because I usually figure these things out way too soon. 

My thanks to Mulholland Books.

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25 Days by Per Jacobsen

 25 days, 25 chapters. This December, the countdown to Christmas will chill you to the bone.

Hoping to bring his family closer together, Adam Gray arranges a vacation in a remote cabin on a snowy mountain. Things take a dark turn, however, when someone starts leaving gifts in the Christmas stocking mounted on the barn door.

Each morning brings something new, and with every passing day, the contents become more terrifying. Soon, the family makes a spine-chilling discovery that they’ve been dragged into a deranged game of Secret Santa, and if they want to survive, they will have to fight.

A peaceful family vacation in an isolated country cabin turns into a harrowing fight for survival in this holiday horror.

The scenic location and lack of internet or cell service seems like the ideal way to bring this family of four closer together. At first, it does just that, until the Christmas stocking appears on the barn with a new threatening gift each day. 

I love Christmas horror so this seemed like it would be right up my alley! I also love when stories take place in snowy, isolated conditions with no way to call for help.

What I do not love is never being told who the perpetrator is or even the why of it all. So I find myself torn. 

I was all in for the first half of this book. The claustrophobic feeling of being trapped with an unknown threat was so creepy! At some point in the second half is when I began to get annoyed. I wanted to know the who and the why of this threat. 
Just when I thought the answers were finally coming it was a letdown when they never materialized. I think the author may also have lost track of some of the injuries that occurred.
In the author's notes at the end of the book is his explanation for this choice to leave us hanging. I was less than satisfied with the reason.

My thanks to HumbleBooks for the gifted e-copy.

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Keep This for Me by Jennifer Fawcett

 One hot August night in 1993, a young couple go to a party. When their car breaks down, they are picked up by a truck driver who attacks the man and abducts the woman. She is never seen again.

That woman was Fiona Green’s mother.

When the trucker, Eddie Ward, is caught, a mass grave of bodies is discovered in his backyard but Fiona’s mother isn’t there. Thirty years later, on his prison deathbed, Ward insists that he didn’t kill her, so Fiona finds herself back in the small town where her mother disappeared. Fighting demons of her own, she’s shocked when history repeats another woman, another roadside breakdown, and another disappearance. Only this time the primary suspect is Jason Ward, Eddie’s son. Desperate, Fiona hunts down answers, unaware that she is being drawn into a dangerous trap.

With Jennifer Fawcett’s signature “suspenseful and immersive” (Library Journal) prose, Keep This for Me is a fresh, spellbinding exploration of what we unwillingly inherit from our parents and how one random act can send ripples years into the future.

30 years ago, when Fiona Green was a baby, her father was left for dead and her mother was abducted by a serial killer. Her body was never found. It was only due to her father's survival that the killer was brought to justice. After decades in prison for the multiple murder victims found buried in his yard, he continues to insist that he didn't kill Fiona's mother. Now that he is sickly and dying, Fiona travels to see him in prison, in hopes that he will finally tell the truth about what he did to her mother. 

Instead, she gets pulled deeper into a dangerous mystery with more questions than answers. Another young woman has gone missing, and the serial killer has a son. Is it starting again? Is the son copying his father's monstrous activities?

This was a suspenseful mystery/thriller with themes of abuse, grief, and mental health. The pacing was perfect and the climax was exciting, even if a bit predictable too early on. Still, I loved how all the pieces finally fit together, although I solved the puzzle before the main character did. The dual timelines were well done and added to the suspense as we gradually get the details of the night of the abduction and of what it was like to grow up as the son of a murderer.

"Keep this for me." Chilling words when you learn their context in this exhilarating read.

4 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Atria Books for the paperback ARC

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