Something is listening to the prayers of St. Paul's United Church, but it's not the god they asked for; it's something much, much older. A quiet Sunday service turns into a living hell when this ancient entity descends upon the house of worship and claims the congregation for its own. The terrified churchgoers must now prove their loyalty to their new god by giving it one of their children or in two days time it will return and destroy them all. As fear rips the congregation apart, it becomes clear that if they're to survive this untold horror, the faithful must become the faithless and enter into a battle against God itself. But as time runs out, they discover that true monsters come not from heaven or hell... ...they come from within.
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–>I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
The Sunday service of St. Paul's United Church is besieged by a dark being from the woods claiming to be their new God...
The story handles a big cast of characters, spending time with each and their inner thoughts and opinions towards one another. They are full of petty squabbles and gossip, before they are set upon by a man, thought missing, now proclaiming to bring them before a new God. His unexpected return causes everything underneath to spill over.
Dealing with issues of domestic abuse, fitting in with a community, and musings about the true nature of God and religion, the characters are excellently done and are like real people, a mix of good and bad and filled with often conflicting and hypocritical thoughts. No tired archetypes and filler characters that only exist to advance the plot here.
There's quite a bit of world-building here, but it's paced perfectly and happens while the plot also advances, so you're not bogged down by info and waiting for things to happen. When the horror starts you see and feel the character's lives being torn apart.
That horror being absolutely gruesome and brutal. The author almost lovingly deploys a straight razor again and again horribly mutilating victims. The being is capable of things right out of a body horror movie, so steel your stomach. Extreme acts of violence are commonplace here, and you can believe the characters would fall before this thing as their new God to attempt to save themselves from it.
I wasn't expecting a book that's three hundred and fifty-eight pages long and filled with a lot of character point of views to read so fast, but it did. It never gets too bogged down and keeps the tension by giving the characters two days to choose a child to sacrifice, a choice that destroys their relationships and pits them against each other.
Extremely well written, full of horror, and well-developed characters. I loved the pondering about religion and God and people coming to terms with an ugly, brutal existence. Worth the read
