Library Loot Mini-Reviews: To Gore or Not To Gore

I saw a mention of Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates somewhere and even though my only previous experience with this author was a rather workmanlike Gothic, I was all in from the jump. What we have here folks is straight-up cotemporary horror suspense and I inhaled every gruesome word of it.

Christa is heading to a secluded lodge in the Rocky Mountains at the behest of her boyfriend with a small tour group when disaster strikes.  When their bus gets stuck on the road thanks to a downed tree, the boyfriend convinces Christa to go to a nearby lookout point. She thinks he's going to propose, what really happens is the weather kicks up, they get lost, they get separated and Christa eventually finds herself taking shelter in a hunting cabin. That's where the rest of the tour group finds her.  She thinks they're safe. They just need to wait out the epic snow storm.  Um, yeah - not so much.

What we have here is part locked-room and part survival story.  Then the bodies start dropping and the paranoia sets in.  I'm a sucker for suspense stories with survival, man vs. elements plots and this one is compulsively readable.  It's also fairly gory.  I have a high tolerance for gore but for those of you who don't two words: multiple decapitations.  I had the whodunit pegged early on, but the motive kept me guessing and Coates does a good job with misdirection and red herrings.  

A couple of things of note however: 1) this book desperately needed an epilogue.  There's some loose threads regarding a couple of characters I wanted tied up.  Also 2) Coates is Australian, which fine. I can read things like tyres instead of tires.  What wasn't fine?  Christa is American (OK, US'ian) and the story is set in the Rocky Mountains. When Christa is sizing up a secondary character she would not gauge his weight in kilos.  Unless they're a transplant from somewhere that the metric system is the standard unit of measure - nobody in the US thinks in kilos in terms of weight.  Yes, I'm nitpicking - but let me tell you how much that yanked me right out of the story and had me Googling to see where the author was from.

Final Grade = B+

It's thanks to the SoCalBloggers (waving to Nikki!) that I picked up The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth.  If you like suspense, but aren't a fan of gore, this one may be more in your wheelhouse.  It's domestic suspense but without an unreliable narrator or gaslighting!  A dang unicorn!

Pippa and Gabe have an idyllic marriage.  Blissfully in love, two beautiful daughters, and a picturesque home on a beach cliffside they couldn't believe they were lucky enough to afford.  It was after they moved in that they realized why they could afford it.  Unbeknownst to them, there's a portion of the cliff that is a "favorite" spot for people contemplating suicide. With the first person they see, Gabe goes out to talk to them. Charming and disarming Gabe has so far talked down seven people from the cliff.  Then, there's number eight, which is where the book opens.  This woman jumps.  And Pippa was watching from the window.  It sure looked like that Gabe may have...pushed her? No, that can't be right. 

What follows is a story told in alternating points of view between Pippa and the dead woman, Amanda.  Yes, a dead woman is one of the narrators. I know it sounds cheesy, but it actually works.  What also works is how the author ultimately ends up weaving their stories together - it's pretty clever actually.

I kept expecting this story to take a sinister, Machiavellian turn, but it never does.  This is what I call "disquieting suspense." Also, mental illness plays a fairly healthy role in this story - the sort of mental illness that many readers may have experience with in their daily lives.  This will either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view.  It worked for me, but I'm also not living with mental illness directly in my day-to-day personal life so....mileage is going to vary here.

A quick, engaging listen on audiobook and it's the book that helped pull me out of the dreadful slump I went through in June/July - so bravo!

Final Grade = B+

#TBRChallenge 2021: House of Shadows

The Book: House of Shadows by Darcy Coates

The Particulars: Romantic Gothic Horror Suspense, Book 1 in series, Black Owl Books, 2015, In Print (Poison Pen Press 2020), Available digitally and for free with Amazon Prime (at time of this posting)

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: Before the entire world shutdown thanks to The 'Rona, my last hurrah was attending the Public Library Association conference in Nashville in February 2020. An ARC of this was in the Sourcebooks booth and I was drawn to that creeptastic cover. 

 

Minor Spoilers

The Review: Buckle in kiddies, it's a damning with faint praise review. Words like "serviceable" and "workman-like" ran through my brain while reading this relatively short Gothic (my ARC copy clocks in at 259 pages). The kind of book that could have been really good if a bit more depth had been thrown into it.  Let me explain...

Sophie is attending the opera with her doting uncle when she meets Mr. Joseph Argenton, a wealthy, handsome stranger who slightly unnerves her even as he fascinates.  He has business dealings with her father and promises to call on their home the next day.  Which he does. Just after dear Papa learns that the ship-load of silks he invested in (all by himself) has been lost at sea, two of the crew members killed.  Papa breaks the news to Sophie just as Mr. Argenton arrives and bingo-bango, soon Sophie is accepting the man's proposal in order to save her family from financial ruin (there are three younger siblings).

They marry with great expediency and Joseph soon takes Sophie to his isolated family estate in the north (called, conveniently enough, Northwood). In residence are his Aunt Rose, Uncle Garrett, younger cousin Elise (around 12) and a host of silent, downcast servants.  If you've read even one Gothic you'll know that Aunt Rose is the evil one in this scenario, but cousin Elise has problems yo.  Anyway, Joseph is occasionally around but has to leave Sophie alone at times in a creepy house that she continually gets lost in, with Aunt Rose who hates her guts and strangeness starts happening right away.  And by strangeness I mean horror.  The walls have a tendency to drip blood, mysterious piano music plays in the night, and Elise is drawing a creepy shadow-like creature in a near trance.

 

If you've ever wondered what the term Wallpaper Historical means, well - this book.  When does it take place? Where does it take place?  Lord, who knows.  It's vaguely English and vaguely Victorian-y.  The back cover blurb for the second book specifically calls out Kensington - and that's all I've got.

Like all true Gothics this one has romance, horror and suspense, plus features a suitably creepy house - so it checks all the boxes.  The one box it doesn't necessarily check is with our hero.  While he's mysterious early on, that's dispatched right away and he takes on a "protector' role of the heroine. Well, sort of.  She's "known" the guy for a matter of days prior to the wedding but sets the land speed record for realizing she's in love with him. How? Why? When did this happen? Who knows! If you've ever wondered what the term Insta-Love means, well - this book.

And that's the problem - the heroine falling in love with a hero who essentially latches on to her in the beginning as a sacrificial lamb.  Then when he starts to feel all gooey about her - HE STILL LEAVES HER ALONE IN THE CREEPY HAUNTED HOUSE WITH HIS CREEPY AUNT EVEN AFTER SHE'S TRAPPED IN A ROOM AND BUCKETS OF BLOOD RAIN DOWN ON HER AND HE HAS TO BREAK DOWN THE DOOR TO RESCUE HER!  YES, HE LEAVES HER AFTER THAT EXPERIENCE TO GO INTO TOWN, LIKE WTF DUDE?!

And the heroine, bless her heart, never gets angry at him.  There's a brief glimmer of a moment when she gets angry that he seems to care about the house more than her but it's gone in a blink and we're back to her wanting to rescue him and he's the only one I trust and blah, blah, blah.

Which makes it sound like I hated this book. I didn't. Basically what this book was for me was Brain Candy. It was a book I could pick up, easily read, and not expend too much brain energy.  And after the last couple of weeks I've had at work? There's a lot to be said for Brain Candy. It was readable and undemanding. How's that for damning with faint praise?  

 

However, it also read fairly cinematic.  What it lacked in detail "on the page" I think would play very well as a screenplay and make a decent period horror piece.

Does it end happily? Sort of. The hero and heroine do ride off into the sunset. Does it end on a cliffhanger?  Sort of. There's an epilogue that definitely leads the reader to the next book in the duology, House of Secrets. Honestly it's series like this that tempt me to pony up for Kindle Unlimited. I might be curious enough to read it, but I'm not so sure I'm curious enough to buy my own copy. How's that for damning with faint praise?

Final Grade = C