C. J. Daley

I knew as soon as this book opened with an exorcist putting bullets in a mason jar of holy water, it was going to be a good one. 
I'll start with the height of this book...this book spooked me legitimately! Which hasn't happened since I read Home Before Dark by Riley Sager. Again, just a good mixture a things going on and the book got me. Was I looking over my shoulder in the dark? Yes, I was. Damn basement laundry rooms... 
When the Hill family moves into their recently renovated country home, they expected some peaceful time off before flipping the house for a profit. What they got instead, was demonic presences, evil spirits, and possession. Oh and evil fog, humidity, and funky smells. Body horror and disfigurement. 
The author does some cool references/Easter eggs. For the new family he kept saying the Hill's house, which I took as a possible ‘The Haunting of Hill House' nod.  There's also the obvious name for the exorcist, Merle Blatty, which is a nod to the author of ‘The Exorcist' William Peter Blatty. 
My favorite part of the novel was the way it was narrated. The production did some really cool things the narrators voice. They changed the octaves lower and higher for some of the demonic stuff and it was really good. 
Personally a 5/5*. 

As soon as I saw this was available, I immediately grabbed a copy and started reading it. Christmas horror is 100% my style this year.

This was a lot darker than I expected from the blurb to be honest. I expected a fast paced home invasion story, and instead I got a ghost story featuring kidnapping, infatuation, absolute control, and conditional love. Mam is not like other mothers. Angelina is constantly watching out so as not to upset her, because at best, she’ll be berated, and at worst…well she doesn’t want to know.

This really broke down and showed the different ways a parent can be over the top controlling. One of my WIP actually features the same type of control, and this was done well enough that I was definitely taking notes. The conditional love was so strongly written and revolting that it made my stomach turn just reading through it.

This was definitely a very Christmasy story, and just about as dark as you can go. Personally a 4/5* for me.

So I am currently attempting to read the Poirot series in order. Ambitious I know... even though they don't actually connect and in some they reference work done by Poirot that has not actually been mentioned prior, but anyway that's how I'm doing it.

So for me I really enjoyed this story not being in the perspective of someone working with Poirot—as much as I enjoy Hastings and disliked the doctor from Roger Ackroyd. This was a refreshing take from so many of the others feeling the same. The story changes perspectives from random characters/suspects and Poirot is almost in the background. This way, when it gets to the explanation at the end, you don't really understand or know what he's thinking because you haven't been attached to him the entire time. It gets to a point where it's almost frustrating how Hastings is used as a tool to blind you, so this approach was nice for me.

A very enjoyable one, I would certainly read it again.

This was on a list for spooky reads, and because of this stellar cover, I instantly added it to my list. The back cover marks this a pitch-dark, witty fantasy, and I wonder if it's tagged that because Tor picked it up? It's not that that isn't accurate, just anywhere else would have probably gone with horror, supernatural, paranormal...

The story follows an exorcist, not known for being delicate, but undeniably effective. The novella flies through some background—never genuinely getting to the level of world-building—and we get shown how good the exorcist really is. His main target is Prosper of Schanz, or more specifically, Prosper's Demon. 

This was an enjoyable read. My favorite part is the author's chosen voice, it really leads the story's tone, and I feel like it's purposefully heavy handed. I loved that the story is pretty obviously time-period specific, however the author's exorcist kind of sits and speaks outside of it. 

Overall not really a spooky one though!

Thanks so much to Tor Nightfire for the ARC, I really wanted to read this one!

Since I started writing I have wanted to write an old person serial killer. Then this year I saw Samantha Downing’s Too Old For This and thought, aww damn. But then I said, wait has there ever been a final grandma? Which began me brewing new ideas until…well this. That’s not to say I can’t or won’t at some point! But this one mentions the Hudson Valley multiple times, with the main character Rose’s daughter even buying a house there, making me feel like a Philip Fracassi book now lives in the same world as my dark little town in Welcome to Cemetery. It can live right next to Black Spring from Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s Hex (the American version). I mean there’s even a young female detective named Williams…so just maybe.

The Autumn Springs retirement sounds like the place to be! Apartments next to your acquaintances, friends, maybe even love interests. Schedule exercises or classes, meals, movie nights, and of course there’s open visitations, this sounds like a fun-filled place to live. Rose is just one of a phenomenally inventive cast of characters, all filled with so much life and personality. They may have aches and pains, may get sick easily or need special care, but these people have life left to live—and they’re determined to do so to the fullest. That is, of course, until the first accident. An accident that’s followed by several more, some that are growingly suspicious.

I love that Rose and her small group of confidants take on almost amateur sleuthing the continued accidents and deaths. They use their unassuming, and often underestimated, natures to get information from nurses, doctors, and even the police that others just simply would not receive. With multiple Hercule Poirot mentions, an in-world detective named Hastings, and Miss Marple name dropped, this had my Agatha Christie loving heart aglow.

This did a really great job of showcasing the elderly as more than just the feeble or fragile people they so often are portrayed as. There’s life and spunk and continued brains up there—there’s more life to be lived. So while this book does feature death, even having multiple scenes where someone says, “well death must happen here all the time!” it does a great job of subverting that with strong and strong willed characters. The kills are inventive, as well as a killer reveal that still felt real-world enough, and there is enough brutality in that realness to appeal to a wide horror audience. My grandmother is 87 and I’m definitely giving her a copy. She loves mysteries and thrillers.

The ending had a callback I was not expecting, and I loved its ambiguous style allowing you to believe what you want. It’s hardcore and intense, and you know what, they deserved it!

Before this read, I had Boys in the Valley on my TBR, only having read Fracassi’s Shortwave Media release, D7. After finishing this, I’m going to have to get my copy out of storage to bump it way up the physical TBR mountain.