Dark Heart of Ilmoure

Read this one as a finalist in SFINCS, opinion is my own and doesn’t reflect that of the team!

This is a slow burn, small town horror. Iris, who already escaped her dysfunctional family once, has been brought back to town by the death of her nephew. This novella spends a lot of time building into that dysfunction. Her mother’s attitude, her father’s over-accepting responses, and her sister’s seeming lack of grief. For me it didn’t exactly reach a level of atmospheric creepiness, but the author does keep it interesting enough to keep it slow.

At just about the 60% mark the novella starts to take off. The mystery that has been building is finally answered, and to be honest, it felt a lot more “left field” than I was expecting. This is definitely more horror than mystery, and while it worked for me, I guess I was just surprised.

This novella also features an old ex with LGBtQ rep, and I thought it was used well that them meeting back up was one of the reveals for the mystery early on. The photo being forgotten in the library one of the only clues throughout the story.

I enjoyed the explanation and ending, as well as the fact that the small town horror might have been spreading its monstrous fingers out to the surrounding areas.