This book was everything I look for in a book. It was so exciting. The plot was fantastic. It really had me on the edge of my seat, and my heart racing. It was very well written and flowed well.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a great storyline with excellent characters. I would highly recommend this book as it was a great read.

Ghoulishly fun!

While it's technically classed as horror, it's horror in the same way that Beetlejuice and the Addams Family are horror; I suppose you could call it horror adjacent? It's very light in tone... as someone who works in a nursing home, it reminds me of those "old lady mystery novels" my residents are always reading, just with more necrophilia and grave-robbing.

This was a quick, entertaining read that I buzzed right through. If I went to the beach more, this would have been the perfect beach read! Easy to put down and pick back up, some fun character study and development but nothing extraordinarily in-depth.

If you're looking for a fun and fast read and you're into horror-toned things, I'd recommend this one.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

A macabre soap opera.

Buried by Sue Ravens centers around a funeral home and the occupants of the small town it’s located in.

The writing was quite good, and the author told quite a story. The characters were strange and yet somehow, realistic of small town living. The plot was outrageous and yet, somehow believable. The final 20 percent of the book was crazy, and yet quite satisfying. If you want to read something different, this is your book.

My review is voluntary and all comments and opinions are my own.

Book was creepy and disturbing, but an an interesting read. First time reading this author and it won't be the last. Characters are well developed, even though I didn't really like any of them. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

*DNF*

Copy kindly received via NetGalley for an honest review.

This one just wasn't for me. I couldn't get into it. Unfortunately had to DNF.

Mind benidingly good. I found it to be super angsty and thrilling. I was all over the place reading this, because I didn't know what to expect.. I highky recommend this

Worst book I've read all year. I don't usually mind disturbing stuff but this one was too graphic, even for me. The plot also made very little sense and it wasn't even an interesting one.
Thanks to Netgalley for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley, BooksGoSocial, and Author Sue Rovens for this ARC.

WHOA! Just . . . Wow! Firstly, if you like to munch on snacks while reading . . . Don't! This is a no-food, appetite-stealing, stomach-churning book. Secondly, if you have a line drawn in the ghoulish/gruesome categories I strongly suggest you brace yourself--those lines will be crossed and then some. Lastly, I think most people understand (at least to an extent) that odd, even frowned-upon things happen in small towns--the lack of careful eyes watching and scrutinizing and all--but this story takes that idea to a whole other nightmarish level. If you don't have chills and nausea after reading this, there's something seriously wrong with you.

Rovens graduated to one of my top five favorite horror authors within the first fifteen pages of this book. It was sooooo good. Normally that omniscient, God-like narrative simply doesn't work in modern day fiction but Rovens knocked it out of the park; I can't imagine the story being told in any other way. It added a light-heartedness, a sort of comic air to the grotesque nature of the tale. It also gave an interesting and fitting perspective to the cast of outlier characters.

Excellent book! Go read it NOW!

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview Burried by Sue Rovens. This was a classic scary story and not for the weak of heart.
Quick read, graphic, and had a good plot.
3 stars.

I found this book in the Horror section on NetGalley, but I would not call it horror, to be honest I don’t really know what section it should be in.

I like this book, more than I expected, it is well written and easy to read, and has a ‘Fargo’ feel to it, both the movie and the TV series, but not as violent, it was a bit ghoulish, but that is to be expected, and it also has a hint of murder mystery feel, but it also had a light mood.

I recommended this book for anyone looking for something quirky and creepy but not too gory.

*Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.*

This horror novel follows multiple characters in a small town and the events that surround the town's funeral home. The events of the book kick off with Pris, a 50 year old single woman, who has developed overtime a hoarding tendency in her home. Note: Pris is never formally diagnosed, but her friend does mention her home turning into a hoarder's house. Pris's dog, Weenie, starts bringing home unexpected finds from the funeral home and cemetery next door. We also follow funeral director Gerald and his two employees as he tries to keep his unconventional business practices under wraps. Small town domestic life gets a horrific spin in this story and everything connects back to Sommerville Funeral Home.

TW/CW: necrophilia, hoarding, gore, cheating

This book was only 224 pages, but it sure managed to pack a lot into a relatively small space. I think a lot of my issues with the book could have been alleviated if we had about 100 more pages, but I still liked this book a good amount. The main issue I think could have been fixed with a longer page count is the telling vs showing. During the beginning 20% or so, when we are being introduced to all the different characters, there is a lot of telling in the narrative. This makes sense from an outside perspective because we have a lot of information we need to know about these characters and very few pages in which to get that information to the reader. However, I think the overall narrative would have been greatly improved if the book was longer and we were able to get some more showing to find out aspects of these characters. Even if the page count were to remain the same, I still think we could have traded off some of the telling portions for more showing. For example, we know from the get-go that Pris has a hoarding problem because we are told a description of her home and how cluttered and, in places, dirty it is. However, I think it would have been a lot more impactful if we were to have a quick few lines showing maybe Pris coming home from work and accidentally knocking over a few piles as she tries to squeeze down the path in the living room.

I really liked the characters in this story - I thought they were all interesting and complex. I really liked how the characters were older which I think is just a perspective that we don't get a whole lot at least in the books I usually pick up. Pris is described in the book's summary as being middle-aged and I was really expecting her to be like 35ish so I was pleasantly surprised when she was 50. I also loved her friendship with Wanda and Kelly and how supportive the women were of each other. Especially how Wanda kept trying to help Pris even with Pris didn't want to be friends anymore. The men of the book - Gerald the funeral director, Ethan who is Kelly's husband, and Bruce the necrophiliac funeral home worker - are unique in their own ways. I do wish we would have gotten more of all the characters interacting more before the main events of the book kicked off especially since it is a small town. I think that could have been a good way to get some extra characterization in, especially if there were tensions already there for other reasons. I thought Pris was a very sympathetic character and her hoarding was handled pretty sensitively. I can't speak to the representation of a hoarder or living in a hoarding situation, but from what I've seen and read in other books this was right along the same lines. Later in the story, we do get a bit of detail into Pris and the way her mind works to somewhat explain how her home got to this state. I think the most powerful part was how helpful and accepting her friends were when she was struggling.

Plot wise, there was just a bit too much happening in such a short amount of pages for me to really feel satisfied with how things turned out. It was almost like once we got started, the book was wrapping up. I normally reach for books that are at least 300 pages but 400ish seems to be my personal sweet spot for thrillers, specifically. Since I don't normally read shorter fiction, this might be 100% a me-issue, but I had an issue with the pacing. This book felt like the first half of a really solid thriller. We get a good amount of set up, some initial conflicts that build tension and throw other plot points into action, and then there's a big event that ends up as the catalyst for all the different plot threads to come together. The 'big event' happened around the 75% mark in this book and the story wrapped up pretty quickly from that point. I was expecting to have to sit in the consequences of that event for longer, see how characters might initially try to deal with the fall out. I think the general pacing out of the different events was good for most of the story but it just felt rushed and cleared up too quickly. In my opinion, I think not having the characters sit in this reality more really put a bit of a damper on the potential character development and conflict that the story could have had.

Finally, let's talk about the horror aspects. For me, this book was a pretty good level of gore but I was surprised there wasn't more. I know everyone has their own limits to horror, especially gore, but I felt this was a pretty mainstream level of gore that I think most readers would be okay with. The descriptions were short and to the point and almost clinical in nature which was interesting. I think because of these descriptions of the more gore heavy elements, the part that actually grossed me out the most was the descriptions of Pris's living situation. This could just be me, but reading about mice running around and Pris's dirty bathrooms grossed me out significantly more than partially decomposed bodies (but again, I think mileage may vary on that point). Now onto the sort of elephant in the room - the necrophilia. We aren't given any real sort of reason behind why Bruce does the things he does to the bodies - it almost comes across as just a thing he does. The necrophilia is on-page and I believe there are about 4 very short scenes where, again, the description is very clinical. Obviously, necrophilia is a very taboo subject and I didn't feel like it was glorified or glamorized in any way. I do wish we would have gotten some more explanation in to Bruce's feelings or maybe how this all started for him, but there just wasn't enough book to explore all that. It almost felt like it was added in as a plot device simply to further the story (Bruce needed to have a reason to be alone with a body late at night for certain plot events to happen). Because of this and because of the types of descriptions we get of these scenes, it would be pretty easy for a reader to skip over these mentions if they wanted to and it wouldn't cause them to lose out on any of the other plot points in the book.

Overall, a pretty good horror book for me. I didn't find it any more horrifying or gory than a slasher movie or episode of a show like Criminal Minds. I like the characters and thought the plot was really good at ramping up the tension. However, I think the book was trying to do just a big too much in the low page count and I think it could have been much more successful with around another 100 pages added in.

Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the ARC in exchange for review.

Publication date was April 21, 2019

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced reading copy. This book has subject matter that may be troubling to some. Still, I had to keep reading it to see what was going to happen,!

Honestly, I did not enjoy this one at all. It was so ridiculously awful. Both the characters and the plot were just terrible and hard to believe.

Well developed characters! This story was disturbing but in a good way! That why I generally enjoy a good horror book!
The writing was good! Kept me intrigued throughout!

Thank you Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for the eARC.
This was a strange read for me. The subjects of hoarding, necrophiliac and the dirty doings of the owner of a funeral home were graphic and I found them unpleasant. For some reason I thought this was going to be a gothic novel, but I wouldn't classify it as that.
The writing was good, but the subject matter too uncomfortable.