This book was dark and twisted and Rosie was creepy.

It was a fast paced story and isn't for the faint hearted.

It's my first Louise Worthington book and I look forward to reading more.
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rosie shadows
By Louise Worthington
Pub date 1 mar 2021
I loved this book didn’t take me long to read this story the cover very creepy such creepy haunting vibes to this story you enjoy. I loved the characters you felt really connected with them .The writing style was beautiful written even though some part were very creepy I would have loved to been on that prison tour with them though. I didn’t want the story to end I loved every page so many creepy plots and twists you enjoy. Archies character was so creepy and mysterious it made you want to read more every page a turn over such a brilliant read I loved all the characters. Thank you for the book.

This was a strange book, a whole lot of promise, but fizzled out in the end. Mostly, it was rather bizarre in the pacing. The stuff alluded to in the blurb came around halfway through, and by that point, the story was already meandering. The creepy quotient was fantastic, and Rosie was delightfully horrifying, disgusting, scary. But almost nothing happened in the first half, and then everything exploded in the second in a way that I found difficult to get my head around.

I was also unable to understand why the dead guy's girlfriend ended up sleeping with her undead boss, even though she was still grieving, and she didn't even like him.

(Review copy from NetGalley)

Rosie Shadow
By Louise Worthington

“A young man inhales and exhales his last breaths. Drowning is the one certainty he has. He carries nothing but the bruises of sadness and stones”.

3/5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I received this book in return for a honest review. Rosie Shadow reminded me of a typical zombie movie - it’s entertaining, it’s gory as hell, not too complex and an easy watch. The premise is a mother struggling to live with her daughter who she believes is evil while an undead cannibal is attempting to capture and feed off local women.

The character development and dialogue are great. I felt invested in the character’s plight and wanted to know what happened next. The struggles of Rosie’s mother were written well and I was rooting for her throughout. Clare’s grief was palatable and real and she made a great protagonist.

The pacing seemed off at times and I wanted certain bits of the book to slow down and give me time to adjust to new information or plot twists. I needed more time with Clare and Archie’s relationship as their story arc happened so fast and out of the blue that it seemed unreal and I couldn’t invest anything in it. I also felt the two major end scenes were over very quickly. I wanted to know more!

All in all I enjoyed this book and would recommend it for horror and zombie fans that fancy a nice simple gore-fest.
Thank you to @netgalley and Red Escape Publishing for this #arcbook. It will be published on 1st March.

This is an extremely original premise and that sense of difference flows through to the characters and how they relate to one another. The author does a great job in painting a vivid picture of the setting for this book. I found myself liking characters that perhaps should not have been so appealing. The pace was a bit mixed - sometimes it seemed to drag while at others I could barely keep track of the twists and turns. Overall, I recommend this book and suspect the next book will be even better.

This story runs the full breadth of emotions you want from horror: fear, unsettled, curious, scared, plus that sense of concern for characters you care about. I loved every minute of it! The creepy, gothic atmosphere of the prison and the ancient yew tree, and the brilliant rendering of weirdo Archie and Rosie, plus the psychological warps of the main character from grief and fear, are all second to none. Even minor characters like odd ball Trevor had me twitching. Great stuff!

Thanks NetGalley publishers and author for this advance readers copy!
So I enjoyed the story! I did... But this just wasn't my type of read!
It wad a bit slow for me! I'm sure there ate some out there who would enjoy this!
I really thought from the description it was going to be good.... It just fell flat in some ways

I'm usually easily bored by zombie rhetoric but Rosie was horrifyingly creepy enough to keep me turning the pages. I really liked (Is like the right word for a child not even a mother could love?) Rosie, but felt the story line fell a bit flat.

It was an easy read though, with some great characters.

If there's one thing Rosie Shadow has going for it, it's originality: this is easily the most unorthodox zombie story I've ever read. Unfortunately, in it's effort to be something unusual and different, this book ends up feeling padded and unnecessarily drawn out. The tale of a strange little girl who may or may not be a rampaging monster and the secret zombie who is feeding on innocent women sounds like it should be very intriguing, but the plot is, sadly, the least engaging part of the novel.

That being said, characterization and dialogue are two of the author's strong suits, and our antagonists (particularly Bella) are extremely well fleshed out, so much so that I found myself more engaged with this young woman's attempts to cope with a terrible loss and reconcile life with her parents and her (very relatable) best friend Elizabeth than I was with the tale of the creepy prison and the secrets held within. This is one of those cases where I felt like some incredibly likable characters had maybe been stuck in the wrong story.

Pacing is also a bit of an issue, and some plot revelations are dumped on our heads so out of nowhere it almost felt as if another writer had bumped in about a quarter of the way through and seized control of the proceedings. But, back on the positive end, the author is extremely adept at creating a moody atmosphere and detailing the creepy surroundings, and her sense of description if palpable, particularly when things turn gruesome.

All in all, this one was a bit of a mixed bag for me: plenty to like, but overall the novel felt like it wanted to be something it really never became. I would love to experience more of the author's finely developed characters, but preferably in a story that seems more suited for them.