TW: Murder, animal death, homophobia, death of spouse, hate crimes, kidnapping, HIV

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:After a recent string of disappearances in a small Connecticut town, a grieving widower with a grim secret is drawn into a dangerous ritual of dark magic by a powerful and mysterious older gentleman named Heart Crowley. Meanwhile, a member of local law enforcement tasked with uncovering the culprit responsible for the bizarre disappearances soon begins to learn of a current of unbridled hatred simmering beneath the guise of the town’s idyllic community—a hatred that will eventually burst and forever change the lives of those who once found peace in the quiet town of Henley’s Edge.
Release Date: June 6th, 2023
Genre: Thriller/horror
Pages: 157
Rating: ⭐

What I Liked:
1. The story reminded me of Needful Things meets Something Wicked This Way Comes

What I Didn't Like:
1. Characters always do repetitive things
2. This writing is trying TOO hard to be something
3. So boring

Overall Thoughts:
How do you know a man wrote this that doesn't have kids? The nurse calls Pipers name and the little girl goes off with the nurse to the back. I've never known anyone to let their little kid go alone to the back. Also it's weird they are even there just to get Pipers height and weight. Why? Also we learn that Piper is blind so how does she just run off by herself and not run into something? Also Gemma smiling at her daughter to go along with Ghost talking to her is confusing. How would she see her mother's smile?

I just always get this feeling when I read the authors books that he is trying too hard to write overly intelligent.

What is with these people putting their finger between their teeth??

In a town where it feels like there are at least some gay people living in it, it feels out of place that Brett and Malik would have a brick thrown through their window. It also seems pretty ballsy to throw a brick throw a cops window.

I was bored with this book. Nothing happens. Paragraphs are just peppered with these fillers - senseless words. A lot of things the author writes makes zero sense in context.
Whether his companion was male or female, he was and always would be invisible—invisible to the women he adored because he sometimes preferred men, and indistinguishable to the men he cherished because he was known to adore women.
What??? There are so many sentences that are like this. It's boring and overdone to the point where I had to skim on some pages. Comparisons felt like they had no point to them. You feel like you're watching some kind of artsy movie that has no meaning. You could just read only the dialogue, ignore the mindless ramblings, and still know what's going on.

One of the things that drives me most upset about this author is how every paragraph describes something with "He/she/it/I/we/they were like...." Every page the author uses the word "like" in at least almost every paragraph. It becomes annoying. Some examples from the same page;
"Dripping wet like the bodies of drowned woodland sprites."
2 paragraphs down
"Brett curled on the floor like a child's doll discarded in a rainstorm, blood leeching across the carpet like a shadow."

Not sure how this thing town doesn't notice this old dude driving around in his big black car and picking up people - people that end up missing.

Ghost kidnapping Piper is insane to me! So the uncle left his blind neice standing in an aisle by herself. Ghost then kidnaps her and takes her back to the house. Afterwards he returns back to the grocery that's surrounded by police and NO ONE questions anything? They didn't watch cameras to see where she went? The police didn't notice a blind little girl matching the missing girl get out of a taxi. The taxi driver didn't think any of this was weird???

Honestly this book wasn't good. It was so so boring. The ending is predictable. Actually this whole book is predictable. I read 157 pages and it feels as though nothing happens.

Final Thoughts:
I feel like the authors books are getting worse and worse. Somehow he managed to make a novella feel so long. There are plot holes in this book that make no sense. I didn't understand the whole point of telling Malik's perspective when it is just barely tied into the main story. It was so boring reading about them.

I would not say this is a horror novel. Maybe more of a magical realism thing but if there was horror then I missed it.

Recommend For:
• Novella's
• Queer love
• Magical moments

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Interesting story, characters and ideas. The 2 main characters ate both interesting to read about and they both deal with grief in interesting ways, the little spirit is a interesting story element. Ther was a moment where I was losing interest but the book knew how to immediately grab it again.

I wanted to like this book but I could not get into the story and found the plot to be hard to follow. The characters were also a bit dull for me.