I loved this! This is a great throwback to old-school Halloween horror. I can't wait to read the rest of the series!

This was a great start to the Ojanox series, it had that horror element that I was looking for. The characters were what I was looking for and enjoyed from the overall feel of them. It worked with everything that I wanted and thought the world was really well done. It left me wanting to read the next chapter in this series as I really enjoyed the way Daemon Manx wrote this.

Thank you NetGalley and Daemon Manx for kindly providing an ARC.

Such a fantastic debut to this series!

The year is 1979. The location: Garrett Grove, a small town in New York near the mountains. On the brink of Halloween, an ancient evil awakens and begins targeting the townsfolk.

I loved the Halloween vibes first and foremost. Really transports you back to your childhood. I also really dug the variety of horror on display: everything from cosmic to body horror. Some of these scenes will forever stay seared in my brain!!

Cannot wait to read the sequel!!

love books that are set in small towns, having grown in one during the 90s - which was not far from when the events of THE OJANOX 1: SCREAM IN THE DARK took place. Unsurprisingly, I have taken to this one immediately. I don't mind that there were quite a number of people to take note of - how they are related to one another (quite like a bird's eye view of the town) along with some of their backstories (a more personal view, like trailing them for a documentary) - as it is quite the norm in places like this. At some point, they just started to seem like old friends (Well, most of them.). I felt their anticipation for Halloween at the beginning of the book, and I felt their fear once an unknown horror started rolling in. The pace was good, and the open ending felt right to me. This is an exciting start to a 4-book series, and I am eager to read the next one!

Thank you to Daemon Manx and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book, I appreciate it very much! I highly recommend it to people who want to try reading horror for the first time.

I wish I could write a more positive review, but this did not hit for me. It had a lot of ideas and promise but didn’t realize them.

This is the first in a series of four books that are being released a month apart, and they were clearly written as a single story, as the author describes in the beginning. I knew that going in, so I wasn’t surprised, and yet still there is some disappointment. When you serialize a release there should be at least some self-contained element in the story, even if it is basically setting up for something larger. There is nothing like that here. This is clearly the first act that doesn’t even try to feel like a fully formed story, even one setting up for something else. It literally feels like a random page number or chapter count was reached and that is where the story was split apart. Again, I knew going in that this wasn’t a complete story, but I didn’t anticipate just how abrupt it would be. If you this going in, that the ending point feels arbitrary and that you really need to read all four in the series to have a single story, then I imagine it won’t be a problem.

Let me start with what I enjoyed, because this might be enough to bring some folks to the title(s). The author takes a very bird’s eye approach, moving all around this small town, which is a very nice way to develop the environment and pace the story. It reminded me of some vintage Stephen King in that way. We dropped in on more than a handful of different characters and would flit about, following each for a while before moving on, and seeing how this singular event in their town is spreading and affecting everyone. I also like that, even in this opening act of the story, there is no hesitancy to start the body count. Lots of stories will body a random person in the prologue and then thread you along until you’re about 2/3 of the way through before the bodies really start falling, or, less euphemistically, before the characters really start experiencing the effects of whatever antagonist they’re facing. That’s not the case here, and it is refreshing. It raises the stakes and that is compelling. Lastly, the ancient evil seems interesting enough. We don’t know enough about it, it could still fall into boring/unimaginative territory, but for now it seems to be a few different mythological ideas put together and it is exciting. (Really, the development in the later books will determine how fun this ancient evil really is as the story’s big bad).

So, what’s less than awesome? Firstly, and this might be the kind of fundamental difficulty, was that the writing itself felt somewhere between clunky and uninspired. We moved between so many characters that the style of prose felt like an author’s bio at the back of a book. It was kind of plain and didactic and felt like it was from a technical manual. There are a few occasions where it got more stylized, but this just felt out of place, in context, it felt like it was effortful, or trying too hard. I generally would rather err on the side of stripped back prose than purple prose, but here it didn’t inspire any real excitement or feeling. Added to that is what I felt were rather generic characters, and a lack of narrative focus. We met a lot of characters, and many of them were given random assortments of facts that served as their backstories, but ultimately they felt like the archetypical expectations of who would populate a small town. None of them felt particularly genuine or lived-in, but just there to meet the expectation of the role. This is where the writing style and the constant movement between characters didn’t do the story any favors. If the prose was more stylized then we might have felt more emotions in relation to these characters, we may have had more to grab onto when exploring their lives. But the dry delivery combined with almost biographic explanations meant I wasn’t drawn to any of them. And, seemingly, neither was the author, because it is hard to pinpoint who is the central, or central-adjacent, character. Even when the story really is about the whole town, and jumps around, we need at least one person that we can really identify with and experience the story along with. In this kind of story, it would usually be the local sheriff or the young child at the beginning of the conflict, and we do spend time with both of them, but not enough to distinguish them as more central than anyone else, really. I never felt like I was going on a journey with anyone, because the characters all felt flat and none of them stood out as audience surrogate (or as being anywhere adjacent to audience surrogate). Between what felt like flat writing, uninspired characters, and a somewhat absent narrative thrust, and add in maybe just a little racism (when this ancient evil is released it muses to itself that the humans in the world now are much more “intellectually evolved” than the ones who had locked it, presumably the Lenape indigenous peoples, who are frequently mentioned throughout the story) and I came really close to DNF’ing this story. The only thing that stopped me was it did move quickly, and given the pacing I was interested to see how this part of the story would end to set up for something more in book two (only to find out this part of the story doesn’t really end, as I mentioned already).

It is hard for me to recommend this. It is following a tried and tested trope; an ancient evil is accidentally released and wreaks havoc on a small town. There is a lot of gold to mine there, and Manx has definitely shown that he sees that gold, he knows it is there, I just didn’t feel like the story was particularly successful in taking the next step to mine any of it. It might be the case that reading the other parts redeem this one, but that would just go to show that it wasn’t wise to split the story into various publications in the way it was split. If you really like “small town in distress” vibes then you might have fun here, it just didn’t come together for me.

I want to thank the author, the publisher Last Waltz Publishing, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The Ojanox is a horror like horror should be. It’s creepy and slowly crawls into your mind.
The whole host of characters are coming into full blown beings. The shadow I’m sure is going to be a full on nightmare.
This is just the first in the series! I’m on edge waiting for the others.

Cosmic horror is a genre that is not easily written or portrayed. The horrors in the tales often include those that can not be seen or are hard to describe/comprehend. Having said that, let me say that Daemon Manx got it right in The Ojanox I: Scream in the Dark! The story begins on Halloween in 1979 which, right away, increases the creep-factor of the whole setting. The small New York town in which The Ojanox takes place is rocked by the strange occurrences that begin on this night. From illness to missing bodies, and supernatural creatures to maniacs in the making, this book has everything you could possibly want in a cosmic horrorfest! Never once did I get bored with the filler in between the action because it is all important to the plot and kept me on the edge of my seat. The characters are well rounded and each story line that will, at one point, culminate into an unbridled, knotted chain of chaos, is written in such a way that it is easy to keep up with the side stories and the main one without getting too lost in all the madness. I am really looking forward to the next installments and I am looking forward to becoming increasingly fearful of the The Ojanox!

Creepy and very entertaining.
Daemon Manx is one of my go-to Horror writers.
Cannot wait for the rest of the series!

It’s been a long time since the premier book of a series has left me THIS hungry for more, but Daemon Manx has done it with The Ojanox I: Scream in the Dark. The way Manx paints his characters history and personalities is reminiscent of what first drew me into Stephen King’s work years ago. The attention to detail and flow make a seamless transition from the beautiful forward into the streets of Garrett Grove 1979. The horror The Ojanox bring to Garrett Grove are numerous and written in a delicious, visceral way. I loved the rich backstory we get for the characters in the town, but now I’m desperate to learn more about The Ojanox!! I feel like I’m already excited for my first re-read of this entire series because it’s a world I won’t give up easy!

WOW! I just loved this story. Set in 79 in a small town in New York (just like the one I grew up in - without the monsters, of course). I was really taken back in time and understood how disturbing all this was for a small town. The ending came on fast, and I can’t wait to see how the series continues, as I have a lot of questions.

Thanks to Daemon for the ARC!

This story hit the nail on the head for spooky retro vibes. I was swept up in the narrative and descriptions, feeling nostalgia for a time I haven’t even lived (90s baby here).

The author does a great job with the characters and the creature, creating a lot of anxiety and tension for the readers as we see what’s starting to unfold.

Something has awoken in the mountains of Garrett Grove. An insidious and intelligent presence is targeting the townsfolk; no one is safe, not even the children. As Halloween approaches, will there be anyone left to celebrate, or will there only be screams in the darkness as people are taken.

I was a bit bummed about the cliffhanger ending if I’m honest. I felt like things had just amped up and wham! It’s over! At least the next book in the series is available soon, because if you’re like me, things ending abruptly drive me batty! I need answers 😆

I have read several other books by this author, and I am never disappointed. When he reached out to ask me about reading this book, I instantly said yes!

Scream in the Dark is a new series from the very talented, Daemon Manx. The story begins around Halloween of 1979. The town of Garrett Grove, a small New York town, is all a buzz preparing for the holiday. Troy Fisher is just a regular 10-year-old kid who loves scaring his friends. He and his best friend Rob came up with the idea of building a haunted attraction in Troys garage, they named it, Scream in the Dark.

At the same time a group of teenagers are up at the local abandoned sanitorium looking for a place to party when they realize they are being tracked by something. Something they cannot fully see, something old, and evil. Something that was recently released from deep in the earth after some digging at the quarry unearthed an ancient burial ground.

Suddenly, the town is almost overrun with a mysterious contagion. Several children and adults have taken ill and the towns sheriff is tasked with trying to find the source. The Ojanox. What is it? Where did it come from, and will the people of this quaint New York town survive?

There is nothing bad about this book that I can say. The storytelling is so intense, it just sucks you in and you will not want to put it down. The characters are well written, the pacing is spot on and the descriptions will keep you interested until the very last word. I am very much looking forward the next book! I cannot come soon enough!

I just want to thank Daemon Manx for giving me the opportunity to ARC read this for him.

This book is powerful. It brought me back to when I just discovered horror and I honestly felt like I did when I first cracked open the tommyknockers way back when. Written with the nostalgic feel of the late 80’s early 90’s horror the Ojanox will be a best seller guaranteed.

Daemon brings edge of your seat suspense built into a sleepy little town where nothing bad ever happens. The Ojanox is just a Halloween tale or so you’re told. The week before Halloween, Hell quietly breaks loose in this peaceful town. Sudden illness, murder, and suspicious activity puts the local law and doctors into a frenzy. Follow multiple different POVs as you explore the town and see every side of the events that are wreaking havoc in Garret

~ Fear seized him like a glacier, as if he had been plunged into a bath of ice water. It wrapped around his heart and threatened to stop it where he stood. It was evil, and it was only a stone’s throw from his doorstep. ~

Special thanks to @daemonmanx for giving me a chance to read this gem early on. 🩷

𝔉𝔬𝔯 𝔣𝔞𝔫𝔰 𝔬𝔣 :
🎃 Halloween Vibes
🎃 Small Town Mystery
🎃 Campfire Ghost Stories
🎃 Creature Feature
🎃 Cosmic Horror
🎃 Body Horror par excellence

𝔚𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔦𝔰 𝔦𝔱 𝔞𝔟𝔬𝔲𝔱?
The year is 1979 around Halloween in Garrett Grove, a small New York town that prepares to welcome the fall season. But in the midst of haunted houses, orange leaves and teenage romance, an ancient evil awakes and with it a strange sickness with horrible consequences.

𝔚𝔥𝔞𝔱 ℑ 𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥𝔱::

This book has it all! Short chapters, several interesting characters with unique stories, Halloween Vibes, Fall Atmosphere, body horror...and I could list so much more.

I loved the small town atmosphere and how this dark mystery affected Garrett Grove as a whole in unique ways. We had a team of doctors trying to find the cause for a truly disturbing sickness that made me whisper "oh my fu**ing god" several times, cops who worked on an eerie case and teens who were at the wrong place at the damn wrong time. Also there was one aspect that's literally my worst nightmare. 😰

I don't want to take anything away but this is SUCH a promising first book in the series and I honestly can't wait to read the other three. If you want to be disturbed but also fascinated and could celebrate Halloween every day of the year, this will be a winner for you! 🎃

Garrett Grove is a beautiful community getting ready for Halloween. Then children start getting sick. Something evil is awake, and it is hungry. The evil is spreading. Full of amazing characters, you grow to love a few you hate. Lots of moments that build dread. It is a beautifully written novel of horror. It's a not to be missed read.